British parliamentarians have voted to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales after concerns sparked by the prosecution of women who end a pregnancy.
The House of Commons approved an amendment to a broader bill on Tuesday that would prevent women from being criminally punished under an antiquated law.
Currently, a woman can face criminal charges for choosing to end a pregnancy after 24 weeks or without the approval of two doctors, under laws that technically still carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
The amendment passed 379-137. The House of Commons will now need to pass the crime bill, which is expected, before it goes to the House of Lords, where it can be delayed but not blocked.
Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, the Labour member of Parliament who introduced one of the amendments, said the change was needed because police have investigated more than 100 women for suspected illegal abortions over the past five years, including some who suffered natural miscarriages and stillbirths.
“This piece of legislation will only take women out of the criminal justice system because they are vulnerable and they need our help,” she said. “Just what public interest is this serving? This is not justice, it is cruelty and it has got to end.”
Changes in the law implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic allow women to receive abortion pills through the mail and terminate their own pregnancies at home within the first 10 weeks.
That has led to a handful of widely publicised cases in which women were prosecuted for illegally obtaining abortion pills and using them to end their own pregnancies after 24 weeks.
In May, Nicola Packer was acquitted after taking abortion medicine when she was around 26 weeks pregnant, beyond the legal limit of 10 weeks for taking such medication at home.
The 45-year-old told jurors during her trial, which came after a four-year police investigation, that she did not realise she had been pregnant for so long.
Carla Foster was jailed in 2023 for illegally obtaining abortion tablets to end her pregnancy when she was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant. The Court of Appeal eventually suspended her sentence.
