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.
We believe that these women deserve compassion, not criminalisation, and this is why we led a campaign, and a coalition of over 50 organisations, to change the law.
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 do not do this, you are committing a crime. The application of the law meant that hundreds of women were being investigated for ‘abortion offences’ – this included women experiencing miscarriage or pregnancy loss.
In reality, this meant that women recovering in their hospital beds after surgery were often visited by uniformed police, handcuffed, and taken to jail. They had their homes searched, their devices confiscated, and their children taken into care.
This campaign brought their voices of real women to the forefront, ensuring their experiences will shape a future in which no woman is treated as a criminal for seeking care.
BPAS formed and led a coalition of over 50 organisations, all of whom supported our calls to remove women from the criminal law relating to abortion.
These groups spanned the entire women’s and human right’s sector, with six medical royal colleges and the British Medical Association throwing their support behind the campaign, as well as many violence against women and girls organisations such as Refuge, Karma Nirvana, and EVAW. Other signatories included human rights bodies such as Liberty, as well as eight trades unions.
Together, the members of this coalition represented more than 800,000 medical staff, provided more than 250,000 abortions every year, protect tens of thousands of women and girls, and stand with millions of workers. And BPAS was at the helm.
Abortion law is made by Members of Parliament (MPs). It’s known as a ‘conscience issue’ – so government does not take a position and doesn’t change the law themselves.
We can change abortion law through MPs who do not have a job in government, known as backbenchers. The backbencher we worked with on this campaign is called Tonia Antoniazzi, the experienced and well-respected Labour MP for Gower. We also worked with MPs from other parties who helped us get support from across Parliament.
Tonia’s amendment – which was to remove women from the criminal law relating to abortion – to the Crime and Policing Bill was the single most supported piece of abortion-related legislation to pass through Parliament in history.
The amendment passed with 379 votes to 137.
Our campaign, dubbed ‘Time to Act’ reached more than 3.1 million people on social media, generating almost 70,000 engagement and twice the sector average.
We partnered Cosmopolitan and leading online influencers and connected with brand-new audiences who had never engaged with abortion law before. More than 17,000 people used our online letter template to email their MPs, turning online support into direct political action.
This campaign reached millions, sparked conversations, and mobilised unprecedented public support.
We also undertook a national billboard campaign – working with an agency to develop content based on women’s experiences, and successfully challenging TfL’s initial decision to refuse to platform our advertisements.
Working with national and international media outlets including the BBC, Sky News, The Guardian, and Channel 4, we elevated the profile of reproductive rights and positioned BPAS as a leading voice in the debate.
The campaign also united our organisation: from clinic teams to campaign staff, colleagues travelled across the country to lobby MPs and speak with authenticity and authority, demonstrating the power of a shared purpose.
This campaign will – when the bill passes through the final stages of parliamentary scrutiny and becomes law in 2026 – deliver legal change that protects women in the most vulnerable of circumstances.
No woman in England or Wales will face criminal investigation for ending a pregnancy ever again.
This reform protects the most vulnerable, rebuilds trust in healthcare, and proves that progress is possible.
