MPs have voted in favour of measures to decriminalise women terminating their own pregnancies.
A vote on Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi’s amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill was supported, with MPs voting 379 to 137.
The Gower MP said it will remove the threat of ‘investigation, arrest, prosecution, or imprisonment’ of any woman who acts in relation to her own pregnancy.
She told MPs she had been moved to advocate for a change in the law having seen women investigated by police over suspected illegal abortions.
During the Bill’s report stage, Ms Antoniazzi assured her colleagues the current 24-week limit would remain and abortions would still require the approval and signatures of two doctors.
The changes will also continue to allow criminal prosecutions for doctors who carry out abortions beyond the current 24-week legal limit or abusive partners who end a woman’s pregnancy without her consent.
On issues such as abortion, MPs usually have free votes, meaning they take their own view rather than deciding along party lines.
During a Westminster Hall debate earlier this month, justice minister Alex Davies-Jones said the Government is neutral on decriminalisation and that it is an issue for Parliament to decide upon.
MPs have voted in favour of measures put forward by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi (pictured) to decriminalise women terminating their own pregnancies
MPs vote on amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill in the House of Commons on Tuesday
Though the Government took a neutral stance on the vote, several high-profile Cabinet ministers, including Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, were among the MPs who backed the amendment in the free vote.
Abortion in England and Wales currently remains a criminal offence but is legal with an authorised provider up to 24 weeks, with very limited circumstances allowing one after this time, such as when the mother’s life is at risk or the child would be born with a severe disability.
It is also legal to take prescribed medication at home if a woman is less than 10 weeks pregnant.
Efforts to change the law to protect women from prosecution follow repeated calls to repeal sections of the 19th-century law the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, after abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in 2019.
The measures to decriminalise abortion still need to complete their legislative journey through both the Commons and the Lords before they can become law.
A second amendment, put forward by Labour MP Stella Creasy, had also sought to repeal sections of the 1861 Act, decriminalise abortion up to 24 weeks, and ensure that late-term abortions did not result in prison sentences.
Ms Creasy’s amendment would have gone go further in making it a human right for women to access abortion so that parliament could not, in future, roll back abortion rights as has happened in other countries.
However, Sir Lindsay only selected Ms Antoniazzi’s to be debated by MPs this evening, which had more than 170 backers last night – compared to over 110 for Ms Creasy’s.
Protesters from pro-life group ‘Christian Concern’ gather near Parliament, as MPs vote on the decriminalisation of abortion on June 17
Protesters from pro-choice group ‘Abortion Rights’ react outside Parliament after MPs voted to decriminalise abortion on June 17
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) said the vote is a ‘landmark moment for women’s rights’.
Chief executive Heidi Stewart said: ‘This is a landmark moment for women’s rights in this country and the most significant change to our abortion law since the 1967 Abortion Act was passed.
‘There will be no more women investigated after enduring a miscarriage, no more women dragged from their hospital beds to the back of a police van, no more women separated from their children because of our archaic abortion law.
‘This is a hard won victory, and we thank all those who have campaigned alongside us, and in particular those women, like Nicola Packer, who have spoken out about their traumatic experiences in the hope of achieving the change parliament has delivered today.
‘When we launched the campaign to decriminalise abortion in 2016, we could not have envisaged that within a decade such progress would be achieved.
‘In the past six years, we have seen more progressive reform of abortion law than we had seen in the previous 50.
‘Today’s vote is testament to the strength of support for abortion rights across the healthcare sector, civil society, parliament, and the country as a whole.
‘We look forward to continuing to work with MPs to deliver wider reform and an abortion framework fit for the 21st century.’
