Senior Labour figures want to water down proposed legislation to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales ahead of a historic Commons debate on the issue.
Later this spring, MPs are due to have a free vote on a proposal by the Labour MP Diana Johnson to abolish the criminal offence associated with a woman ending her own pregnancy.
The proposal from Johnson, who chairs the home affairs select committee, has support from MPs on both sides of the house and senior doctors’ groups. There has been a widespread expectation it will pass, in a major change to abortion law.
In England and Wales it is a criminal offence to have an abortion after 24 weeks, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Campaigners supporting Johnson’s amendment, which would remove this offence, say that would ensure no woman can be prosecuted or jailed for ending a pregnancy. Instead, abortion would be treated as a healthcare issue.
This would bring the law in England and Wales in line with Northern Ireland, where abortion was fully decriminalised in 2019. In Northern Ireland women can no longer be prosecuted for terminations after 24 weeks, although such terminations are extremely rare as even early-stage abortions are offered only in clinics.
Some senior Labour figures have privately expressed concern that Johnson’s proposal goes too far because of the provision of telemedicine in England and Wales, whereby a woman seeking an early-stage abortion can be prescribed tablets at home without seeing a doctor.
Under rules introduced during the Covid pandemic and later made permanent, women in England and Wales can obtain abortion pills at home after a remote consultation. This is not an option in Northern Ireland, where the first of two tablets required for a termination can be administered only at a clinic.
There are concerns that under Johnson’s proposal, a woman who misleads an abortion provider to obtain pills to terminate a pregnancy at home after 24 weeks would not be committing an offence.
There are also fears such a change could be counterproductive by drawing backlash from anti-abortion groups or rolling back telemedicine in England and Wales. “There are some people who are questioning whether this is the right thing to do,” one Labour MP said.
Another Labour source said: “There is definitely a large group of undecideds [and] lots of different people working on alternatives.”
Two influential Labour backbenchers have been in discussions about drafting different amendments to modernise abortion law.
Some senior Labour figures want to see a narrower proposal that in effect ensures women can never be imprisoned for ending a pregnancy, but does not completely remove the criminal offence.
The Commons is expected to have a historic debate on abortion when the criminal justice bill returns to the house after Easter. Johnson’s proposal has been made in the form of an amendment to that bill.
Calls to overhaul the law have grown louder since Carla Foster, a mother of three, was jailed last year for ending her pregnancy by using pills after the legal time limit. Her sentence was reduced on appeal.
Abortion law in England and Wales relies on the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which outlawed terminations and is still used to prosecute women today.
The 1967 Abortion Act decriminalised abortion in some circumstances, but is framed in a way that means abortion is not a right. Instead, it exempts women from prosecution when two doctors agree the pregnancy would be a risk to their physical or mental health. The act originally allowed terminations up to 28 weeks, but this was lowered to 24 weeks in a 1991 amendment.
The 1967 act never extended to Northern Ireland, where abortion was illegal until a 2019 act repealed key sections of the 1861 legislation. A new legal framework was introduced in 2020 to set up abortion provision in Northern Ireland up to 24 weeks. As a result, the law in Northern Ireland is more up to date than England and Wales. Scotland has separate laws and has set up a working group to examine decriminalisation.
Abortion is treated as a matter of conscience in parliamentary votes, so MPs from all parties are allowed to vote whichever way they wish, without frontbench direction.
Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, has suggested she could vote in favour of decriminalisation. A source close to Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, said he was minded to vote whichever way Atkins does.
Johnson’s amendment has been signed by senior MPs including the Labour MPs Jess Phillips and Harriet Harman, and the Conservatives Tracey Crouch and Dehenna Davison. It has support from MPs from six parties, which gives it a strong chance of being selected for a vote by the Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle.
The amendment also has the backing of the heads of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Midwives.
Johnson told the Guardian: “These laws are no longer fit for purpose. This is an opportunity to take a step forward and treat a woman’s right to choose as a healthcare matter and not a criminal matter. Society has moved on. Other countries around the world – France, Australia, New Zealand – have decriminalised abortion, as we did in Northern Ireland a few years ago. Why should a woman in Birmingham be treated any differently to a woman in Belfast?”
Harman said: “Women needing to terminate their pregnancy need help, support and healthcare, not police, prosecutors and courts.”
Rachael Clarke, the chief of staff at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), said: “Every single Labour MP elected in 2019 was elected on a manifesto committed to the decriminalisation of abortion.”
