The Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 make abortion a crime that carries a maximum life sentence. This crime applies to everyone – doctors, women, violent partners.
If you have an abortion in England and Wales it has to be in a way allowed by the Abortion Act 1967. That means getting two doctors permission, being within a certain time limit, and meeting one of the grounds in law.
If you don’t do this – such as by buying abortion pills on the internet to end your own pregnancy – you are committing a crime.
In the last few years, more than 100 women in England and Wales have been investigated by the police on suspicion of breaking abortion law to end their own pregnancy.
For some very vulnerable women, they took abortion medication after the 24 week limit in a moment of desperation – but for others they did nothing wrong and experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth. These women have been reported by their medical team, arrested, taken from their hospital beds to police cells, interrogated without access to medical care, and separated from their children.
One woman ended up in jail.
These women need compassion, not criminalisation. The only way to do that is to change the law.
Abortion law is made by Members of Parliament (MPs). It’s known as a ‘conscience issue’ – so government doesn’t take a position and doesn’t change the law themselves.
We can change abortion law through MPs who don’t have a job in government, known as backbenchers. The backbencher we’re working with is called Tonia Antoniazzi, the experienced and well-respected Labour MP for Gower. We’re also working with MPs from other parties who are helping us get support from across Parliament.
These MPs can propose a change to a piece of legislation that’s going through parliament. The current bill we’re working on is the Crime and Policing Bill. It’s being passed through parliament during 2025.
Our change is simple – it says:
For the purposes of the law related to abortion, including sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, no offence is committed by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy.
This amendment is laid as New Clause 1 (NC1) to the Crime and Policing Bill.
It would not change anything about how abortion is provided in England and Wales – it would not change the time limit, the requirement for two doctors to sign off on an abortion, the grounds a woman must meet, the law on sex selective abortion, or the laws which criminalise violent partners who try to end a pregnancy without consent.
All it would do is make sure that no more women are arrested under abortion law.
We are working with 50 organisations to make this change happen.
Together, they represent more than 800,000 medical staff; provide more than 250,000 abortions every year; protect tens of thousands of women; and stand with millions of workers.
You can find the full list of organisations in our joint briefing below.
BPAS started the campaign to decriminalise and reform abortion law in 2012 and have built a coalition of 50 pro-choice organisations committed to it. It’s a generational change, and one we’re fully committed to delivering for women.
Abortion law is complex – it’s made up of criminal law, healthcare law, government regulation, and broader healthcare regulation, all of which govern how every one of the 250,000 women a year who get an abortion can access it. Women who have an abortion may not see how that law works in practice – but that’s because providers have worked for decades to make sure abortion is as accessible under the law as possible.
All of this means that changing abortion law is a complex job and one which it’s essential to get right to ensure abortion providers and women can be confident that abortion access won’t be harmed.
That’s why we’re focused on the need for a new Abortion Act – bringing our law up to date, treating abortion like the healthcare it is which means no more two doctors required to approve an abortion, no more grounds to meet, and ensuring our law reflects what we need in 2025. We’re already taking part in this reform in Scotland – and are determined to make the same change in England and Wales.
That’s why we’re supporting NC1 to the Crime and Policing Bill and not supporting NC20 – to make sure we solve the urgent issue of women being criminalised now, and make sure that any change to the wider law is properly considered and does not risk harming the very thing we’re all trying to protect.
