‘Abortion is healthcare’: If you agree, join our pro-choice campaign in partnership with BPAS

Little-known fact: abortion is technically a criminal offence in England and Wales, governed by a law from 1861, before women got the right to vote.

As powerful anti-choice groups seek to roll back reproductive rights here - as we’ve seen in the US and Europe - we’ve joined forces with BPAS, the UK’s leading abortion care service, on new campaign End 1861, to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales.

Head here to take action to raise your voice for choice and fight for bodily autonomy.

She was 15 years old and had just suffered an unexplained, early stillbirth. For one year, she was then subjected to police reading her messages and wading through her search history. It was invasive: a digital strip-search after an already traumatic experience. Eventually, police dropped the case and a coroner concluded the pregnancy ended because of natural causes.

This didn’t happen in the US, in one of the states where abortion is severely restricted after the overturning of Roe v Wade. It happened here, in the UK. And this teenager is one of a growing number of women who have suffered miscarriages or stillbirths and are being investigated by the police on suspicion of having illegal abortions. Because believe it or not, abortion is technically still a crime in Britain.

The law under which investigations are carried out in England and Wales dates back to 1861, and it carries the threat of life imprisonment for procuring your own abortion, as part of the Offences against the Person Act. (In Scotland, where abortion is a devolved matter, abortion remains criminalised – though under other laws; abortion in Northern Ireland was fully decriminalised in 2019, though access, as Cosmopolitan has reported, remains difficult.)

In 1967, an amendment was made that meant you could legally access an abortion, provided you met certain criteria: you are under 24 weeks pregnant, you meet one of seven medical reasons, and have that reason signed off by two doctors. Today, that law still stands. It’s why, for most women who need one, it’s possible to access a safe, legal abortion.

But if you’re suspected of procuring an abortion and without meeting the criteria, you can be investigated, charged and ultimately prosecuted, potentially facing a life sentence. Until recently, this law was rarely invoked. But six women have appeared in court over the past two years. And the number of women being investigated is now the highest it’s been in decades.

‘Compassion not criminalisation’

They include the case of one woman who, after a four-and-half-year ordeal that her legal representatives described as “utterly traumatising”, culminated in her standing in the dock last week to give evidence as part of her two-week trial. She’d procured abortion pills by post - made legal up to ten weeks, following a remote consultation, under emergency provisions introduced during the pandemic.

When she’d gone to hospital with the foetus she had passed into the toilet bowl - expecting simply blood clots - and explained what happened, the police were called. While recovering from surgery she was arrested and taken into custody. Over four years later she was having the most intimate details of her personal life interrogated in court. She was found not guilty, and her case has inspired anger at the current law.

Then in January last year, a 22-year-old was found not guilty of an illegal at-home abortion, after a three-year investigation. Her photos, address and details of her pregnancy were reported widely during this time. This is why we’ve made the decision not to name the women either charged or investigated.

While these cases are rare, the rise in prosecutions of late has been labelled as ‘unprecedented’ in a warning from medical professionals – and bodies including the British Medical Association, and Royal Colleges of Nurses, Midwives and Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have called for “immediate action” to safeguard our reproductive rights, and it is vital that we listen.

It’s time to act and back bodily autonomy

We might think that our reproductive rights are safe this side of the Atlantic, and that we’d never see the backslide in bodily autonomy that has shocked and appalled our counterparts in the US and across Europe. Although the law permits women to have abortions in some circumstances, abortion remains criminalised right here, right now, in our country. And the longer this law exists, the easier it will be for powerful anti-choice groups and right-wing politicians to control our reproductive rights in the years ahead.

Especially with the rise of the far right in UK politics, with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage on record as saying MPs should look at potentially making Britain’s abortion cut-off limit/eligibility period shorter. Pro-choice politicians and campaigners warn that it’s with this small, incremental rolling back of reproductive freedoms that those who are anti-choice will seek to manifest their aims. After all, it’s easier to amend and increase the scope of an existing law, than to implement an entirely new one.

If we want to stop this escalation in prosecutions, we have to speak up. If we want to make it harder for further mandatory criteria to be implemented, we have to speak up. If we want to prevent the laws governing our bodies from becoming stricter we have to speak up. If we believe access to abortion is a healthcare issue, not a criminal one, we have to speak up.

This is why we’re partnering with the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and adding our voice to a campaign backed by more than 30 groups in the UK, who represent 800,000 healthcare professionals, demanding ‘urgent action’ to safeguard reproductive rights.

We’re not suggesting the deregulation of abortion, or that the time limit is changed, or that there shouldn’t be appropriate processes and guidelines. We’re saying abortions are healthcare, and should be treated as such. Cases of women having abortions outside of the set criteria almost always involve situations of abuse and violence, or other significantly extenuating (and traumatic) circumstances, requiring care and compassion. And, we should point out that the vast majority of abortions that take place in the UK are performed under 10 weeks. This is about protecting vulnerable people, as well as safeguarding our future rights.

What we’re asking for is simple but critical: we need to ensure that women in England and Wales have the same protection as those in Northern Ireland by removing the threat of prosecution in relation to their own pregnancy. Scotland is currently looking at similar reforms. Women in countries including Ireland, France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand do not face prosecution.

And make no mistake: it’s not enough, right now, to be ambiently pro-choice. To have blind faith in social progress being linear. The people shouting the loudest right now are anti-choice campaigners and far-right politicians. They are organised. They are energised. They are emboldened.

How you can join the fight

We want to shout louder, use our voice to fight for choice, End 1861 and back bodily autonomy – demanding that our elected representatives make it happen.

MPs will be voting on an amendment in June that will take abortion out of the criminal law in England and Wales. It has the backing of 30+ healthcare and women’s rights organisations from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to End Violence Against Women Coalition. These are not radical forces: they are mainstream advocates for the health, wellbeing and protection of women and girls. Cosmopolitan stands with them.

If you believe that abortion is healthcare, that our reproductive rights should be protected and that no woman deserves the threat of life imprisonment for ending her own pregnancy then we implore you to stand with us.

Click here for a simple template you can use to email your MP asking them to add their name to the amendment that will remove abortion from the criminal law in England and Wales. It’s time to end 1861.