Decriminalising abortion is a radical provocation
Abortion law in Great Britain was fine. And now it is not
Last night, British MPs voted by 379 to 137 to prevent any women being prosecuted for procuring an abortion, at any point in the pregnancy up until birth. It is a striking, foolish and immoral development, a pre-emptive strike against an imagined pro-life surge funded by American evangelicals, and one that needlessly unsettles a highly liberal abortion regime that was widely accepted by the British public.
The proximate cause of this amendment, which was grafted onto the Crime and Policing Bill, is a spike in women being investigated, prosecuted and even convicted in relation to the deaths of their children during the latter stages of pregnancy. There have been over 100 such investigations since 2020, an increase attributed to the rise of abortion by post during lockdown, in which women obtain pills via a phone consultation which they take at home to end their pregnancy. Such a system has increased police suspicion around late term abortions – justifiably so, in the case of Carla Foster, but not so justifiably in cases like that of Nicola Packer.
The wider cause is that British politicians spend too much time watching American news. Stella Creasy, a Labour MP who had separately proposed decriminalising abortion entirely, has pointed to the repeal of Roe v Wade in the US as inspiration for her recent lawmaking efforts. This ignores that America is a more Christian country with more influential religious lobbies, and that abortion law has been in statute here for more than half a century, buttressed by widespread public support and safeguarded by the evident liberalism of parliamentarians on this issue.
Campaigners have likewise made references to Victorian abortion laws, with provisions concerning abortion from the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 still being in effect. This is a stupid argument: laws are appropriate or not irrespective of their age, and much behaviour we’d still object to, not least murder, has been criminalised for centuries. Indeed, the 1861 bill contains provisions criminalising assault that remain in use today, albeit with amendments.
Either way, it can hardly be said that Britain is averse to abortions, given that a quarter of a million are performed each year; on the mainland the procedure is effectively elective up to 24 weeks; and they continue to be allowed up until birth if the mother’s life is at risk or the health of the child severely compromised. At this point the exceptions to abortion’s technical illegality are bigger than the rule.
As for political efforts to restrict abortion, these have been negligible in Great Britain. Conservative politicians like Nigel Farage and even David Cameron may occasionally have floated reducing the legal threshold of 24 weeks in light of improved survival rates for premature babies, but none of these ideas ever gain traction. Even in Northern Ireland, where some claim abortion services are not plentiful enough, the practice has been decriminalised, in an effort led by Creasy over the heads of the devolved government.
More than any of this, the politicians and pundits who champion the amendment neglect to address the case made by their opponents. As the noted humanitarian Farage has pointed out, it is bizarre that we go to great lengths to keep alive a child born prematurely at 24 weeks, but are completely uninterested in their fate if they’ve not left the womb. The rights of premature babies now depend on whether they are in or ex utero.
As the dumb George Carlin riff goes, much of this treats abortion critics as merely people who hate women and take pleasure in controlling their choices. Put more mildly, Ella Whelan argues in UnHerd today that “abortion also exists on a moral plane in which it represents society’s trust in women”, adding that female critics of abortion should not be “forcing another woman to reap the consequences of their discomfort”. Put another way: if you don’t like abortion, don’t get one.
This completely misunderstands the argument, wilfully or otherwise. The question, plainly put, is in what circumstances a woman might be obliged to carry a foetus or baby to term. The legislation that the House of Commons has passed says: none. A woman can abort her child at any point for any reason and the state will shrug its shoulders.
There’s little reason to believe this kind of ultra-liberal, violinist in need of dialysis view is that of most British people. Every poll you can find shows majority support for a threshold after which healthy pregnancies should not be ended, with about half backing 24 weeks and maybe a quarter wanting it lowered. What’s the point of having a threshold if there are no consequences for breaching it? (This is a question for the British public, who give contradictory answers to different questions on this point.)
Much of the coverage of this depicts the amendment as a brilliant wheeze by parliamentarians, left free to vote with their conscience rather than follow the party whip. Put more honestly, this measure has been voted on by a random assortment of 650 individuals who have no mandate on this matter, because abortion reform was not a part of any party platform, and voters vote for parties, not candidates. (I will make an exception for Jeremy Corbyn, a rare MP who can legitimately claim a personal vote.)
And none of it needed to happen. Abortion law in Great Britain struck a reasonable balance between the rights of women to choose and the rights of unborn babies to live once they’d reached a certain stage of development. Rather than head off an American style culture war, pro-choice advocates in Britain have enacted a radical policy that wakes a conflict that was happily sleeping in its bed.