Press Statement – Anscombe Bioethics Centre Strongly Opposes Harmful and Inhumane Abortion ‘Decriminalisation’ Amendments

Today and tomorrow, the House of Commons will consider amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill, two of which (see the Amendment Paper here, pp. 108–112) would aim to ‘decriminalise’ abortion – i.e. remove criminal penalties for illegal abortions from the law.

New Clause 1 (NC1), proposed by Tonia Antoniazzi MP, would disapply the crimes of ‘unlawful procurement of miscarriage’ (sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against The Person Act 1861) and ‘child destruction’ (the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929) from women who cause their own abortion. This means that no woman could be prosecuted for aborting her own child at any stage of pregnancy, including immediately before birth, and for any reason (e.g. sex-selection).

New Clause 20 (NC20), proposed by Stella Creasy MP, is still more extreme, and would repeal the two crimes altogether, meaning that abortionists, whether or not medically qualified, would face no penalties for causing the death of an unborn child at any stage of pregnancy. Further, by repealing the crime of ‘child destruction’, there would be no extra penalty for anyone who caused a woman to miscarry or undergo a forced or unwanted abortion.

As we did before, in relation to previous attempts to introduce similar proposals, the Anscombe Bioethics Centre opposes these amendments in the strongest possible terms, as antithetical to the welfare and dignity of women and their unborn children. By removing the legally mandated oversight of both law and medicine, both amendments increase not only the danger of coercion of women into abortion, as the police will not be able to investigate and detect such abuses, but also the risk of dangerous late-term abortion without medical supervision. At the same time, by mostly or entirely removing legal protections for the unborn, these amendments deny the basic humanity and dignity of some of the most vulnerable members of the human family.

Such proposals are intended to end the phenomenon of women being investigated and prosecuted for using abortifacient drugs illegally. However, the recent increase in such investigations is a direct consequence of the advent of ‘telemedicine’ abortions. These were introduced during the COVID pandemic as a way to minimise the health risks of face-to-face contact, but they have increased the risk of coercion and of illegal abortion. If the practice of ‘telemedicine’ abortion is permitted to continue, then weakening or abandoning the current legal framework will only increase the likelihood of women taking abortifacient drugs while under coercive control, and of taking such drugs without medical supervision at a stage of pregnancy that poses a risk to life. These harmful and inhumane amendments would increase the danger of women dying by backstreet abortion.

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Notes to Editors:

• Any part of the above can be quoted as coming from our Public Bioethics Fellow, Dr Mehmet Çiftçi.
• For more background information on this issue, see the Anscombe Centre’s Bioethics in Brief on Abortion.
• For more information on the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, see our website: www.bioethics.org.uk
• For interviews or comment, contact: media@bioethics.org.uk