This week, peers in the House of Lords are gearing up to vote on a historic law change that, if passed, would be a landmark moment in the history of women’s reproductive rights.
The change is needed more than ever, as women in England are reportedly being arrested under suspicion of illegally ending their pregnancies, including one who suffered a miscarriage at 17 weeks. It’s just another way that women’s reproductive freedom is under threat – but there’s still time to stop this from happening.
Arrests have taken place under a Victorian-era law that came into legislation in 1861 before women even had the right to vote.
Last summer, following a Cosmopolitan UK campaign, MPs voted overwhelmingly in favour of scrapping the law and decriminalising abortion. The change, if passed, will stop women in England and Wales being prosecuted for ending their pregnancies.
At present, abortion is illegal in England and Wales with exceptions for pregnancies before 24 weeks and in other circumstances. Women seeking terminations before 24 weeks must procure the signatures of two doctors before being allowed the procedure. Since 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, women have been allowed to terminate pregnancies at home via pills following a phone or video consultation, if they are before 10 weeks (also known as ‘telemedicine’ and ‘pills-by-post abortions’).
Abortions outside of these frameworks can lead to serious criminal charges.
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Amendment NC1 to the Crime and Policing Bill, which was tabled by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi and backed as part of Cosmopolitan UK’s End 1861 campaign, brings an end to the use of the 1861 Offenses Against the Person Act. The vote in June last year won by a landslide majority of 242.
Cosmopolitan UK’s campaign, in partnership with the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), was met with overwhelming public support, with thousands writing to their MPs, and with over 50 organisations, 180 MPs and all the main abortion providers backing it.
But before it can become law, the legislation still needs to complete its journey through the Commons and the Lords.
To be clear, the bill would not change limits to abortion timeframes, it would simply bring abortion in line with other healthcare provisions and ensure the procedure is regulated without threat of criminal investigations. By ending the 1861 law, England and Wales would simply be catching up with countries like Canada, France, and New Zealand, where abortion is treated as a medical matter rather than a criminal one.
On Wednesday this week, members of the Lords will debate decriminalisation and other amendments to the bill before voting on changes. In English law, both the House of Commons and the House of Lords must agree on the final text of a bill before it can receive Royal Assent and become an Act of Parliament (law).
Women’s reproductive rights have been increasingly under threat in recent years, and an additional amendment has been put forward to end pills-by-post, something which will also be considered in tomorrow’s Lord’s vote. If passed, it will see reinstating of mandatory in-person medical consultations, something that will make it significantly harder for many women to seek an early-stage abortion.
In response to a FOI (Freedom of Information) request by The Guardian, both the Met and Nottinghamshire police confirmed they had made arrests of women suspected of illegally terminating their pregnancies since June last year. One case, the paper reports, saw doctors contact police over concerns for a woman’s safety after she miscarried at 17 weeks. Instead of receiving support, she was arrested in the hospital’s bereavement room.
Another woman had her home searched following a stillbirth. The woman had reportedly believed she was in early pregnancy but had delivered at home at 24 weeks (the legal limit for abortion in England and Wales). Doctors had been concerned she was the victim of domestic abuse.
When asked about the circumstances prompting arrests, a National Police Chiefs Council spokesperson told Cosmopolitan UK: “Police do not routinely investigate unexpected pregnancy loss. An investigation is only initiated where there is credible information to suggest criminal activity, and this would often be because of concerns raised from medical professionals,” adding that there is “no standardised policy to investigate illegal abortions and that police will always work closely with health partners to prioritise the welfare of everyone involved.”
Speaking to Cosmopolitan UK ahead of the vote, Louise McCudden, MSI Reproductive Choices’ UK head of external affairs, said: “Abortion is a common, essential healthcare service, and it is unacceptable that women in England and Wales are still being arrested and investigated on suspicion of ending their own pregnancies under a Victorian law created in 1861.
“We know from providing reproductive healthcare across six continents that criminalisation harms women and makes abortion less safe. The House of Lords now has a historic opportunity to end the threat of prosecution once and for all, pardon women who have been previously convicted and drop ongoing investigations. At a time when we are seeing rollbacks in reproductive rights around the world, most notably in the US, it’s encouraging that our parliament is standing up for women.”
It’s not too late to have your say. BPAS have put together a simple online tool that you can use to email a Peer directly, ahead of this week’s vote. It takes seconds to complete.
We cannot let a vocal minority dismantle our hard-won rights. Use the BPAS tool today, tell the Lords to protect pills-by-post, and help us finally consign the 1861 law to history.
Harriet Hall is an award-winning journalist and the Features Director at Cosmopolitan. Most recently she was awarded Best Feature for her investigation into Andrew Tate and online misogyny at the 2023 Write to End Violence Against Women awards and the BSME for Best Lifestyle Journalist in 2022 for her work covering women’s safety, women's health, politics and pop culture. As a journalist of over a decade, her work has seen her interview celebrities from Zendaya to Zac Effron and politicians including Jeremy Corbyn (just five days before the 2017 general election); report on fashion weeks and take on stunts in the name of feminism. She has written for a range of publications including The Independent where she ran the lifestyle desk for four years, Evening Standard, Vogue, BBC News and Stylist. Harriet also regularly appears across numerous platforms to discuss her work, from Sky News to Radio 4 Woman’s Hour and on panels such as at the prestigious Woman of the World Festival. Her first book ‘She: A Celebration of 100 Renegade Women’ was published by Headline Home in 2018 and you can find her Tweeting, Instagramming and on Linkedin when she isn’t curled up on the sofa with a good book and the smallest dog in the world.
