Support vote on a modern abortion bill

Tell your MP to support Bill which would decriminalise abortion up to 24 weeks on 13 March.

Current abortion laws do not prevent the vast majority of women ultimately accessing abortion care in the UK – with the exception of Northern Ireland – but they compromise that care at many levels.

When passed in 1967, the Abortion Act was designed to protect women’s health – but in the 21st century it is preventing the provision of the best possible medical care.

Requiring that two doctors approve a termination can cause delays, for example.

And provisions in the Act are also used to prevent women from taking the ‘abortion pill’ – effectively an early medical abortion – at home, in their own time, as women experiencing miscarriage are currently able to do.

The law instead requires women to attend several appointments at clinics and denying them choice over when the pregnancy is ended.

The current interpretation of the Act also prohibits the full development of nurse or midwife-led services that are nowadays the model in delivering woman-centred maternity care.

There is also the threat of prosecution that is unique to abortion and deters many doctors from wanting to enter this fundamental area of women’s healthcare.

In recent years there have been frequent calls by those opposed to abortion to bring criminal charges against doctors – not for providing substandard or unsafe care to women but for failing to sign the legal paperwork that is sent to government officials correctly.

While advances in abortion care mean many women can be treated in licensed health premises in the community or stand-alone clinics, increasing numbers of women with medical conditions need to be cared for by doctors within NHS hospitals.

Some of these women are then compelled to continue their pregnancy because they cannot find doctors willing or able to treat them. These women may include those with epilepsy, diabetes, or a high BMI – all of which make can continuation of the pregnancy a much greater threat to their health.

But fundamentally, it is unacceptable that women’s bodies remain governed by Victorian legislation that fossilises values well out of step with those cherished in Britain today.

The criminalisation of abortion makes a mockery of the equal status that is accorded to women in any other area of life, represents discrimination against women, and stigmatises the one in three women who will have an abortion.

It harms women.

As things stand then, any woman anywhere the UK who uses abortion medication purchased online, which is now readily available, risks life imprisonment.

Abortion may be relatively accessibly for most women – with the exception of Northern Ireland – yet women still do resort to purchasing medication, illegally, for a number of reasons.

They may be young women who are too scared to tell their parents that they are pregnant.

They may be experiencing domestic violence and worried that their partner will find out if they go to their GP or an abortion clinic.

They may also be women who don’t know how to access abortion services, or are unable to do so through the NHS because of their asylum status.

The accessibility of this medication means the risk of women breaking the law is now greater than at any point since the 1967 Act was passed.

Other comparable countries do not send women to prison for inducing their own miscarriages. Even Poland, where abortion is all but outlawed, does not prosecute women who cause their own abortions.

The use of the criminal law to punish women in the UK serves no purpose.

It is not a deterrent, as any woman who feels desperate enough to try to end her own pregnancy will find a way to do so, and it cannot be seen as an appropriate punishment for a heinous crime, given that legal abortions are approved everyday.

The ‘We Trust Women’ coalition’s campaign believes that abortion should be taken out of the criminal law, through the removal of sections 58 and 59 of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act and equivalent common law offences in Scotland.

The campaign is supported by a range of women’s rights groups, reproductive rights campaigners and professional bodies including bpas, the Royal College of Midwives, Women’s Aid, Fawcett Society, Maternity Action, the British Society of Abortion Care Providers, Birthrights, Lawyers for Choice, End Violence Against Women, Equality Now, IPPF European Network, Voice for Choice, Southall Black Sisters, Alliance for Choice NI and Doctors for a Woman’s Choice on Abortion.

And on 13 March, MPs will vote on a bill to change that law.

Please contact your MP and tell them to vote to protect women who are currently at risk of criminal prosecution and vote in favour of MP Diana Johnson’s Reproductive Health (Access to Terminations) Bill which would decriminalise abortion up to 24 weeks.

Thanks.