Decriminalising Abortion

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Tony Vaughan]

I agree, and I will support the new clause.

Ms Packer was in hospital one day, and arrested the next, and it took five years before the courts could dispose of that case. Another case is that of Carla Foster, a mother who was jailed for illegally taking abortion tablets to end her pregnancy during lockdown. She was initially sentenced to 28 months in prison. She was a mother of three who was of exceptionally good character and had suffered from poor mental health. She had quickly admitted to police that she had provided incorrect information during a consultation, and the Court of Appeal reduced the term to 14 months and suspended the sentence. However, by that point, she had already served 35 days in prison and had been denied any communication with her children, one of whom is autistic. In reducing her sentence, the judge said that the case called for “compassion, not punishment”, and that there was “no useful purpose” in keeping her in prison.

[Kim Leadbeater (Spen Valley) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for introducing this important debate. Does he agree that at the heart of this discussion are some key principles, such as compassion, which he mentioned, as well as choice and bodily autonomy? Whatever stage we are at in our lives, it is important that we are allowed to make choices about our own bodies, free from the fear of criminalisation or judgment.

[Tony Vaughan]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and thank her for her work on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which engages that principle of autonomy. I find it hard to read about the cases I just mentioned and not feel that the time has come to abandon the practice of criminalising and imprisoning women for choices they make about their own pregnancies.