Decriminalising Abortion

Tony Vaughan Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 700014 relating to decriminalising abortion.

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. The petition creator is Gemma Clark, and this is what it says:

“I am calling on the UK government to remove abortion from criminal law so that no pregnant person can be criminalised for procuring their own abortion.”

Gemma became involved in campaigning on this issue during the pandemic. She was particularly alarmed by the tactics of some campaigners harassing women trying to access abortion in Scotland. She also has a friend who experienced a stillbirth but was investigated by the police.

Gemma is worried that there is a lot of misinformation about abortion, especially late-term ones, and that that is linked to the rise of extreme ideologies and misogyny. She is a primary school teacher and is fearful that the young girls she is educating now will have fewer rights when they grow up than she does. I thank Gemma and the more than 103,000 people from across the UK who signed her petition. That includes 152 from my constituency of Folkestone and Hythe. I also thank 55 of my constituents who emailed me to express their views on the issue. That has fed into this speech.

How is abortion criminalised in the UK? It depends on where we live. Abortion is, in effect, decriminalised in Northern Ireland, whereas long-standing laws maintain the criminalisation of abortion in England, Wales and Scotland with two main offences: procuring miscarriage under section 58 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, and child destruction under section 1 of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The hon. and learned Gentleman is describing the law. One of the justifications for the Abortion Act 1967 was that it would end back-street abortions; indeed, whether we like it or not, we have abortion on demand in safe environments. If the proposals we are discussing go ahead and, de facto, it becomes possible to have an abortion at home up to birth, does he not think that could endanger women’s health? Is he not worried about that, or are the movers of the petition not worried about that?

[Tony Vaughan]

I am not aware that following the decriminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland there has been a strong current to re-criminalise it, which might be expected had a situation such as the right hon. Gentleman referred to actually occurred. It is not my understanding that that has happened.

For each of the two offences I described, sentences of up to life imprisonment apply. A person is guilty of the offence of child destruction when the pregnancy is of at least 28 weeks and they commit a wilful act to cause the child’s death; it is a defence if the act was done to preserve the mother’s life. The offence of procuring miscarriage can be committed at any stage of gestation when a person uses a poison or instrument to induce miscarriage. As the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said, there are defences, variously, under the Abortion Act when two registered medical practitioners authorise abortion in an approved clinic in broadly four situations. The first is when there is a risk of injury to the mother’s physical or mental health up to 24 weeks—that was the exception expanded during covid, so that women could access pills for medical abortions at home, following a consultation, for pregnancy of up to 10 weeks.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The hon. and learned Member made a point about Northern Ireland. It is important to note that Northern Ireland does not have at-home abortions—pills by post—and much of the discussion about decriminalisation of abortion in England, or here in the mainland, is focused on at-home abortions. Northern Ireland has a very different context, which should not be used in the same train of thought.

[Tony Vaughan]

I note the hon. Member’s point.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is also worth noting that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has explicitly called for telemedicine to be made available to women in Northern Ireland. Given that we have a human rights framework in Northern Ireland, the Government have to respond to that or risk being taken to court again by the chief commissioner for failing to uphold the human rights of women in Northern Ireland to access a safe and legal abortion. We have no such protections here in England and Wales as yet. Is that not the case?

[Tony Vaughan]

My hon. Friend is right, and of course it was a 2018 Supreme Court decision that showed that the rules that were then in force in Northern Ireland violated the human rights of women. That has to be at the centre of our considerations.

Let me finish listing the exceptions so that I can get to the point. Risk of grave or permanent injury, risk to the mother’s life and substantial foetal abnormality are exceptions without any gestational time limit.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Tony Vaughan]

I will press on, because I am conscious of the time. Maybe we will come back to this.

[Jim Shannon]

We have three hours.

[Tony Vaughan]

All right then.

[Jim Shannon]

The reason I knew that is because before the debate I checked with you, Mr Vickers, that we would have ample time to speak. It is important to put something on the record about the abortion legislation in Northern Ireland. I say this respectfully to the hon. and learned Gentleman, who knows that that is the way I always try to make my points: the legislation in Northern Ireland was imposed by Westminster because we did not have a Northern Ireland Assembly that was working at the time. The elected representatives therefore could not have an input into the process, and, according to the polls, the people of Northern Ireland were very much against the type of legislation coming in. He refers to the Northern Ireland legislation, but it is Northern Ireland legislation that the Government here imposed; Northern Ireland had no input into it.

[Tony Vaughan]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I come back to what I said to the right hon. Member for Gainsborough: whatever the position at the time of the law’s coming into force, I am not aware of there being a movement or democratic support for changing the law back to what it was before. When we talk about whether laws meet the current standards and societal norms, that is the most important thing.

Let me turn to how the law is applied in England and Wales. Until 2022, it was believed that only three women had been convicted of having an illegal abortion in the 150 years since the 1861 Act, under which most illegal abortions are prosecuted, but there has been a recent increase in the prosecutions of women for procuring miscarriage under the Act. The Crown Prosecution Service reports that in the period January 2019 to March 2023, six people were charged with child destruction and 11 were charged with procuring miscarriage under section 58 of the 1861 Act.

One of those people was Nicola Packer, who took home abortion medication following a teleconsultation, believing that she was less than 10 weeks pregnant. She was in fact 26 weeks pregnant, and was accused of having an illegal abortion. On 7 November 2020, she was in hospital. The next day—

[Martin Vickers (in the Chair)]

Order. May I clarify whether this is a live case?

[Tony Vaughan]

My understanding is that the case has been disposed of. Ms Packer was found not guilty of those charges last month, I believe.

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the best way of keeping women’s protections to have an abortion and to stop the criminalisation of women, which he has been talking about, is to support new clause 1, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) has tabled, to the Crime and Policing Bill?

[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.

[Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)]

I thank all those who signed the petition to make sure that we had this debate. Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that more than 200 women have been investigated for this? Does he agree that some of the police tactics used—crime scene tape, excluding families from their own homes, and removing children even in cases where no charges are brought—are extremely traumatising to the family and the woman who has suffered the loss of a child, whether by her own decision or because of a miscarriage?

[Tony Vaughan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that statistic, which I was not aware of. Criminalisation involves traumatisation from the moment of investigation to charge, arrest and all the way through the system.

The time has come to abandon these outdated practices. I struggle to see how it can be a good use of the scarce resources in our criminal justice system to prosecute and imprison women in these situations. Our laws cannot be fixed relics of the past, but must reflect social attitudes and societal norms. A YouGov poll of 2,098 adults in September 2023 found that 52% of respondents believed that women should not face prosecution for having an abortion, while only 21% of respondents believed that prosecution was appropriate.

At the international level, and as the petition creator, Gemma Clark, has rightly reminded me, the World Health Organisation’s 2022 guidelines on safe abortion recommend removing medically unnecessary policy barriers to safe abortion, such as criminalisation. More than 30 organisations representing medical practitioners in this country support decriminalising abortion, including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the Faculty of Public Health, the Centre for Reproductive Rights, the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Dr Ranee Thakar, the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, has said:

“Abortion that happens outside of the current law generally involves very vulnerable women—including those facing domestic abuse, mental health challenges or barriers to accessing NHS care. Yet alarmingly, prosecutions of women have been increasing in recent years…Abortion is an essential form of healthcare and should be subject to regulatory and professional standards like other medical procedures, not criminal sanctions.”

As I mentioned, Northern Ireland repealed provisions criminalising abortion. Similarly, my hon. Friends the Members for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) and for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) have tabled new clauses to the Crime and Policing Bill that would disapply such provisions, eliminating the risk of prosecution for women who self-manage abortions or seek care beyond current legal limits. Under the new clause of my hon. Friend the Member for Gower, access to abortion services would remain exactly as it is, as I understand it, including time limits, grounds for abortion and the requirement for two doctors. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow is in a much better position than me to talk about her new clause, which follows similar principles, so I will not stray into her territory by saying more at this stage.

The key point is that although we should maintain regulation, criminalisation is a very different matter. I appreciate that there are organisations passionately opposed to decriminalising abortion. I believe that decriminalisation does not mean deregulation. My hon. Friends the Members for Gower and for Walthamstow propose to maintain a body of rules on access to and provision of abortion, such as the existing time limit, which would remain in force.

Some people claim that decriminalising abortion would lead to significant increases in the number of women performing dangerous late-stage abortions at home, as the right hon. Member for Gainsborough suggested, but I think that would be highly unlikely. The latest figures available, from 2022, reveal that 88% of abortions were performed at under 10 weeks gestation. I have not seen, as I said in response to interventions, evidence to suggest that removing the criminal law deterrent would motivate swathes of women to have abortions after 24 weeks. Indeed, I have not heard of any campaigns in Northern Ireland to re-criminalise due to unforeseen consequences.

[Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for the excellent speech that he is making. Many of my constituents have contacted me about this issue, and I, too, support the new clauses. Does he recognise that decriminalisation would bring us in line with other countries, including France, Ireland, Canada and Australia?

[Tony Vaughan]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, which is noted.

[Carla Lockhart]

In reference to other countries, the hon. and learned Gentleman says that there is no evidence that decriminalisation will increase abortions. What is his response to the example of New Zealand, where abortion was decriminalised in March 2020, and in that year there was a 43% increase in late-term abortions, between 20 weeks gestation and birth, compared with 2019?

[Tony Vaughan]

I am not aware of that statistic. It may be that I can look into it and say more about it in closing.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

This Parliament must protect women’s fundamental healthcare rights. That is what nearly 200 of my constituents said in signing this petition, and it is why I co-signed new clause 17 to the Crime and Policing Bill, proposed by our hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy).

We face a global backlash against abortion access. The US vice-president has criticised our buffer zones, citing a case in my Bournemouth East constituency. I visited the clinic identified by the vice-president and met staff there. They deserve safety and freedom from harassment, but they are concerned about tampering and vandalism of their vehicles and rising hostility. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that my constituents deserve fundamental human rights? We must lock in those rights and put them beyond the reach of politicians, to prevent future roll-backs. Does he agree that we need to end the threat of prosecution, and decriminalise abortion?

[Tony Vaughan]

I agree with my hon. Friend. As our hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow and I have said, these are human rights issues, and courts have highlighted incompatibilities where that has been the case. It is important that those principles guide our approach. I am in favour of the regulation of abortion, but I am also in favour of decriminalising it, so that abortion can once and for all be treated by the law as a matter of healthcare, not criminality, and individual rights to bodily autonomy can be exercised without fear of prosecution at one of the most physically and mentally vulnerable points in any woman’s life. I look forward to hearing the contributions of other Members and the Government.

[Martin Vickers (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that they must bob if they want to catch my eye.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Vaughan]

I again thank the petitioner, Gemma Clark, for starting this petition. As others have said, it is being debated at a crucial time given the proposed new clauses to the Crime and Policing Bill, which we have debated today to a degree. What is clear is that abortion investigations and prosecutions are on the rise, although they are still relatively small in number. However, what has come across in many hon. Members’ speeches is that a culture of fear flows from the criminal law. We heard of Sammy’s case. Victims are being treated as suspects; seven police officers raided a house and searched bins, phones and health apps at a time of deep vulnerability.

Many hon. Members referred to the centrality of choice and individual autonomy, as I did. Some Opposition Members mentioned the value of the life of the unborn child and said that autonomy was almost being treated as a trump card by those proposing decriminalisation. That is not something I hear or recognise. A human rights approach will always balance the competing rights that I have just referred to. That is what the Supreme Court did in the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission case when it found that the rules at that time were incompatible with the law.

There is always the backstop of preventing inhuman treatment, but there was no real rebuttal to the proposition that public attitudes in England and Wales overwhelmingly support decriminalisation. It follows that Parliament should respond to that. I again thank the petitioner for presenting this House with an opportunity to consider this crucial issue, and I thank everyone for participating in the Petitions Committee process.

Question put,

That this House has considered e-petition 700014 relating to decriminalising abortion.

The Chair’s opinion as to the decision of the Question was challenged.

Question not decided (Standing Order No. 10(13)).