Currently, a woman can face criminal charges for choosing to end a pregnancy after 24 weeks or without the approval of two doctors, under laws which technically still carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
MPs voted by a majority of 242 on Tuesday in favour of an amendment put forward by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, which would ensure that no woman would be criminally pursued for terminating her own pregnancy at any time -- even though the amendment leaves the underlying abortion laws unchanged.
“Women are currently being arrested from hospital bed to police cell and facing criminal investigations on suspicion of ending their own pregnancy,“ Antoniazzi told AFP.
Abortion in England and Wales is a criminal offence under the Offences Against the Person Act, passed in 1861 during the Victorian age and which theoretically carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Abortions are allowed in limited circumstances after this time, such as if the mother’s life is in danger or there is a “substantial risk” the child could be born with a serious disability.
In May, Nicola Packer was acquitted after taking prescribed abortion medicine when she was around 26 weeks pregnant, beyond the 10-week legal limit.
“It was horrendous giving evidence, absolutely awful,“ she told The Guardian newspaper last month.
‘Optimistic’
And anyone assisting a woman in getting an abortion outside the remits of the law, such as medical practitioners, will still be liable for prosecution.
They say six women have appeared in court in England charged with ending or attempting to end their own pregnancy outside abortion law in the last three years.
Antoniazzi said police have investigated “more than 100 women for suspected illegal abortion in the last five years including women who’ve suffered natural miscarriages and stillbirths”.
When asked about the vote, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Tuesday that women have the right to a “safe and legal abortion”.
Northern Ireland decriminalised abortion for women in 2019. Scotland is currently reviewing its abortion laws.
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