MPs vote in favour of measures to decriminalise abortion for women
MPs have voted in favour of measures to decriminalise women terminating their own pregnancies.
The Commons voted 379 to 137, majority 242, to back Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi's amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill.
The Gower MP said it will remove the threat of 'investigation, arrest, prosecution or imprisonment' of any woman who acts in relation to her own pregnancy.
Ms Antoniazzi told MPs she had been moved to advocate for a change in the law having seen women investigated by police over suspected illegal abortions.
During the Bill's report stage, Ms Antoniazzi assured her colleagues the current 24-week limit would remain, abortions would still require the approval and signatures of two doctors, and that healthcare professionals 'acting outside the law and abusive partners using violence or poisoning to end a pregnancy would still be criminalised, as they are now'.
She also told MPs: 'This is the right change at the right time. I implore colleagues who want to protect women and girls and abortion services to vote for new clause one. Let's ensure that not a single desperate woman ever again is subject to traumatic, criminal investigation at the worst moments in their lives.'
On issues such as abortion, MPs usually have free votes, meaning they take their own view rather than deciding along party lines.
Justice minister Alex Davies-Jones indicated the Government is neutral on decriminalisation and that it is an issue for Parliament to decide upon.
But winding up for the Government after Tuesday's debate, Ms Davies-Jones suggested ministers would work to ensure the law change was workable if MPs voted for it.
She told the Commons: 'If it is the will of Parliament that the law should change, the Government in fulfilling its duty to ensure that the legislation is legally robust and workable will work closely with my honourable friends to ensure that their amendments accurately reflect their intentions and the will of Parliament, and are coherent with the statute book.'
Though the Government took a neutral stance on the vote, several high-profile Cabinet ministers were among the MPs who backed the amendment.
They included Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden, Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall, Defence Secretary John Healey, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, Environment Secretary Steve Reed, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn, Scotland Secretary Ian Murray, Wales Secretary Jo Stevens and Commons Leader Lucy Powell.
Kemi Badenoch and many members of the Conservative frontbench voted against it, but shadow education secretary Laura Trott voted in favour.
Abortion in England and Wales currently remains a criminal offence but is legal with an authorised provider up to 24 weeks, with very limited circumstances allowing one after this time, such as when the mother's life is at risk or the child would be born with a severe disability.
It is also legal to take prescribed medication at home if a woman is less than 10 weeks pregnant.
Efforts to change the law to protect women from prosecution follow repeated calls to repeal sections of the 19th-century law the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, after abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in 2019.
The measures to decriminalise abortion still need to complete their legislative journey through both the Commons and the Lords before they can become law.
The step was welcomed by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS).
Heidi Stewart, chief executive of the charity, said: 'This is a landmark moment for women's rights in this country and the most significant change to our abortion law since the 1967 Abortion Act was passed.
'There will be no more women investigated after enduring a miscarriage, no more women dragged from their hospital beds to the back of a police van, no more women separated from their children because of our archaic abortion law.'
The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) said it was 'horrified' by the vote.
Alithea Williams, of SPUC, said: 'If this clause becomes law, a woman who aborts her baby at any point in pregnancy, even moments before birth, would not be committing a criminal offence.'
She added: 'Our already liberal abortion law allows an estimated 300,000 babies a year to be killed. Now, even the very limited protection afforded by the law is being stripped away.'
Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, had proposed an amendment with a more strident means of decriminalising abortion, but repealing laws from the 19th century and the inter-war period.
She claimed on social media site X following the Commons debate that 'what passed knocked out our chance to decriminalise abortion', as her amendment fell as a result.
Ms Antoniazzi, who tabled the rival amendment, said her fellow Labour MP had faced 'unforgivable abuse' outside Parliament on Tuesday from anti-abortion campaigners.
A third amendment from Tory MP Dr Caroline Johnson, requiring those having an abortion to have an in-person consultation in a bid to strengthen protections, was rejected by the Commons.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Labour warned that failure to tackle small-boats crisis risks fuelling further grooming gang cases
Labour's failure to tackle the small-boats crisis risks fuelling further grooming gang cases, the Conservatives warned yesterday. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said there are growing concerns that foreign criminals are using the border chaos to slip into Britain illegally. He said the grooming gangs scandal was becoming a 'border security issue' – and pointed to a warning in Louise Casey's official report this week, which found that a 'significant proportion' of suspects in currently live cases are asylum seekers or foreign nationals. Speaking at a press conference in London, Mr Philp said: 'The Government has no idea who the people are coming in, what their previous records are... The fact that Louise Casey in her report identifies that 'significant numbers' of perpetrators are asylum seekers or non-UK nationals, shows that the lack of control at the border is fuelling the risk here.' Baroness Casey's 'audit' was commissioned by the Government to establish whether a national inquiry is needed into the grooming gangs scandal. The report found public bodies covered up evidence about Asian grooming gangs for years 'for fear of appearing racist'. It said police data on the ethnicity of offenders was too poor to draw firm conclusions nationally. But it found that in three areas where better data had been collected – Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and Rotherham – Asian men were over-represented among suspects. The report also examined a dozen major live police operations into grooming gangs and found a 'significant proportion' of suspects are asylum seekers or were born abroad. A Home Office source said there was insufficient data to draw a clear link between small-boat arrivals and grooming gang offences. Maggie Oliver, a former detective who sounded the alarm about rape gangs operating in Rochdale, warned about the risk that record levels of illegal immigration could trigger a new wave of child grooming. She told the Daily T podcast: 'If we do not get a grip on this, we are just going to see it explode even more.' Kemi Badenoch said Baroness Casey was right to link the grooming gangs scandal to the surge in illegal migration. She told GB News: 'In some instances, it was asylum seekers – people who sought sanctuary in our country – who actually were committing these crimes. 'This is why I say that Britain is being mugged. People are exploiting our kindness and we need to put a stop to it.' Baroness Casey said there was a culture of 'denial' among many public bodies about the ethnicity of many offenders. Yesterday she revealed that she examined the case of one child's file and found the word Pakistani 'Tippexed out'. Mr Philp called for the prosecution of those in public bodies who helped cover up the grooming gangs scandal for years. He said the worst offenders should be charged with misconduct in public office and 'sent to prison'. Giving evidence to MPs yesterday, Baroness Casey said the authorities are not looking hard enough to find victims of grooming gangs. She said: 'I think people don't necessarily look hard enough to find these children.' Baroness Casey added that, while there was an over-representation of Asian men in cases of child sexual exploitation, this was not the case for child abuse, saying: 'If you look at the data for child abuse... it is white men.'
Western Telegraph
an hour ago
- Western Telegraph
UK economic growth downgraded due to tariffs and cost hikes
Rising costs are set to cause 'weak' business investment and weigh on the Government's ambitions to accelerate growth in the UK economy, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said. The influential trade body's latest economic forecast indicated that the UK economy is on track to grow by 1.2% this year. It had previously predicted a rise of 1.6%. It also downgraded its growth forecast for 2026 from 1.5% to 1% for the year. The CBI highlighted that the UK has seen strong growth over the start of the year, rising by 0.7% in the first three months of 2025. But it suggested underlying activity 'remains sluggish' due to persistently weak demand and gloomy sentiment among businesses. It added that higher employment costs linked to the autumn budget, including rises to national insurance contributions and the increased national minimum wage, have impacted firms. It said this has fed into higher pricing and reduced capital expenditure and hiring among many firms. Meanwhile, higher US tariffs from President Trump's administration have also created headwinds for exports to the US and hindered investment from multinational companies in the UK. It comes after Donald Trump and the Prime Minister finalised a US-UK deal intended to slash trade barriers on goods from both countries while at the G7 summit in Canada earlier this week. Louise Hellem, chief economist at the CBI, said: 'Our latest economic forecast underlines the challenges facing businesses and the wider economy as they're buffeted by domestic and global headwinds. 'The unpredictable global outlook combined with rising employment costs, gloomy business sentiment, and subdued investment intentions means it's more important than ever that government pulls all the levers it can to set the UK on a path to sustainable growth. 'With GDP (gross domestic product) set to remain modest in 2026, there is an important opportunity for the government to fire up the growth agenda in the forthcoming Industrial Strategy. 'With the cumulative burden of increased costs being felt by firms across the economy, it is vital the Industrial Strategy helps drive a thriving environment for all businesses.'
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
The grooming gangs report exposes the moral cowardice of officialdom
SIR – Now we know who has paid the price for multiculturalism: the white girls exploited by grooming gangs, whose pleas for help went unheeded by those who feared being viewed as racist (report, June 17). The refusal to face reality must be rooted out of the police, local and national politics, and all elements of officialdom. The multicultural experiment has been disastrous, allowing the maintenance of distinct, sometimes alien, cultures and parallel societies. It should be abandoned in favour of integration, requiring the acceptance of core British values: free speech and the rule of law. John Hicks Manchester SIR – Nick Timothy (Commentary, June 17) is right to describe these crimes as 'racially and religiously aggravated rape'. Just as officials were unwilling to register the ethnicity of the perpetrators because they feared being seen as racist, so they continue to refer to 'Asian men' instead of making clear that this behaviour reflected an extreme form of Islam that treats women as inferior and despises those who do not follow the religion. Annabel Burton Cheltenham, Gloucestershire SIR – When I became the police and crime commissioner of the Thames Valley in 2013, the excellent chief constable, Sara Thornton, had initiated a criminal investigation into essentially Pakistani grooming gangs in Banbury and Oxford. The push-back from social services was extraordinary. But despite the lack of cooperation by the very services that should have been protecting the underage girls, the prosecutions were successful, and heavy sentences resulted. It was clear that, if this was happening in Thames Valley, it would also be going on in conurbations in the Midlands and the North. Again there was a push-back against this suggestion. Dame Louise Casey, who visited me, understands this. The fact that not a single major grooming gang prosecution has taken place in London also needs some explaining. Anthony Stansfeld Kintbury, Berkshire SIR – After my retirement more than a decade ago, I did some voluntary work at our local library. In a quiet period I found a book called Girl A, by Anonymous. I took it out. I found that I could not read more than one chapter per day. It was the first published account of child rape gangs written by one of the victims. It should be compulsory reading for all politicians and other authorities who will now be called on to address this issue without the suppression of inconvenient truths. Howard Phillips London SW20
