Calls for reform of UK abortion laws after woman jailed for late termination

A two-year prison sentence for a woman in England who terminated a pregnancy after the legal time limit has alarmed abortion rights advocates and prompted calls for reform of the Victorian statute under which the mother of three was convicted.

Labour MP Stella Creasy said the criminal legal regime that governs the procedure was “arcane” and meant women were at risk of being “prosecuted for exercising what we consider to be a human right”. Campaigners demanding decriminalisation of abortion plan to march from London’s Royal Courts of Justice to Westminster on Saturday.

Anti-abortionists say the late-stage termination demonstrates the need for legal restrictions and highlights dangers of a “pills by post” scheme introduced during the coronavirus pandemic to ease access to abortion tablets. Michael Robinson, executive director at the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said the “abortion industry” was “using this case to push for abortion up to birth”.

Yet despite the outcry, legal experts say there is limited immediate prospect of a change of the current rules.

The woman at the centre of the case was at least 32 weeks into her pregnancy when she induced the stillbirth of her daughter, whom the court in Stoke-on-Trent referred to as Lily.

The 44-year-old lied to obtain the pills well beyond the 10-week limit. She had moved back in with her estranged partner during lockdown restrictions while secretly carrying another man’s child.

The heated response to her sentencing this week has shown how the issue can arouse strong emotion in the UK, even if contentious court proceedings and political rows about abortion are much more rare than in the notoriously fraught environment of the US.

The judge in the case, Mr Justice Pepperall, passed a 28-month sentence after rejecting medical professionals’ pleas for leniency and encouraged critics of the law to lobby parliament.

The woman was jailed under the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which outlawed abortion alongside issues of its time, such as casting stone upon railway carriages and assaulting keelmen.

The more familiar Abortion Act 1967 permitted the procedure in certain circumstances, but left the 19th century criminal prohibition in place.

Abortions in England, Wales and Scotland can generally be carried out before the 24th week of pregnancy, subject to agreement from two doctors. Later terminations are permissible only when the pregnancy threatens “grave permanent injury” or death of the mother, or if the baby would be born with serious disability.

Despite the law, critics have questioned whether it was in the public interest to prosecute the woman. The length of her jail term also surprised some barristers, especially since Pepperall accepted that she had “a very deep emotional attachment” to her unborn child and been “plagued by nightmares and flashbacks”.

The judge also acknowledged that the woman’s children, one of whom has special needs, would suffer as a result of her imprisonment.

Beyond the risk of injustice in individual cases, proponents of decriminalising abortion make a broader argument that the legal framework underpinning the procedure is inappropriate, not least because criminal sanctions risk having a “chilling effect” on other women who wish to terminate their pregnancies.

“We have a healthcare service [for abortion] that rests on a criminal foundation,” Creasy said. “We should start from the perspective that this is a medical matter” — for which, she added, there could and should be “very strict rules”.

The current arrangements have left England in the curious position of having — on paper at least — a stricter abortion regime than socially conservative Northern Ireland, where there is a history of women travelling across the Irish Sea for terminations they could not have at home. Abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in 2019, although delays have beset the rollout of services.

The British public has a relatively liberal attitude towards abortion. More than three-quarters believe the practice should be allowed if the woman does not want to have the child, according to the British Social Attitudes Survey. Even so, ministers are reluctant to wade into what remains a contentious issue.

“The people who have very strong moral beliefs about abortion care about it an awful lot,” said Sally Sheldon, law professor at Bristol university and an advocate for abortion rights.

Responding to an urgent opposition question on the case this week, justice minister Edward Argar told MPs that abortion was “settled in law” and ministers “do not intend to change” the arrangements.

Downing Street said the present approach “provides the right balance”, adding that women have access to safe abortions on the NHS at up to 24 weeks pregnancy.

Thangam Debbonaire, shadow leader of the Commons, said the Labour party was concerned the sentence in the “awful” case would “deter women from seeking urgent healthcare support that they need”.

However, she stopped short of calling for the decriminalisation of abortion regulations and said “of course there need to be time limits”. She called for the Sentencing Council, an independent body that seeks to promote consistency in sentencing, to consider drawing up guidelines to stop “vulnerable women sent to prison like this” and asked if the government would “review” the legal framework.

Some Conservative lawmakers — including Caroline Nokes, chair of the Commons’ women and equalities select committee — have also said there is a case for a rethink of the law.

Yet Sheldon questioned whether there was enough political will to create the necessary parliamentary time to enable legislative change.

“Government just don’t want to deal with this,” she said. “They don’t want the divisions — nor the hostile mail.”