The UK House of Lords has voted to allow a controversial clause on abortion legislation that removes criminal penalties for women ending their own pregnancies at any stage, including up to birth.
Yesterday, during the report stage of the Crime and Policing Bill, peers voted against two main amendments aimed at stopping it or limiting the change by requiring in-person medical consultations.
The new clause focuses only on women themselves, meaning no prosecution if a woman uses pills or other means to end her pregnancy, even after 24 weeks.
Supporters say this protects vulnerable women from police action in tragic cases, such as when miscarriages are wrongly investigated as illegal terminations, or when women in distress use pills obtained online.
Opponents, including pro-life groups such as Right to Life UK, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, and peers who backed the failed amendments argue it goes too far.
They say it could allow unrestricted self-induced abortions late in pregnancy, increase dangers to women from unsafe methods, enable sex-selective terminations without checks and effectively permit abortion up to birth in practice for those acting alone.
Former health minister Maria Caulfield told GB News yesterday that passing the amendment would mean “infanticide … would become possible with no legal consequence”.
An amendment to pardon women previously investigated or convicted under abortion laws and to clear related records, was accepted.
The change does not alter the rules for abortions carried out by doctors.
Those remain limited by the Abortion Act 1967 to 24 weeks in most cases, with exceptions allowed for serious risks to the woman’s life or health, or severe foetal conditions and they still need approval from two doctors.
The bill now returns to the House of Commons to consider the Lords’ changes.
If it passes final stages and receives Royal Assent, it would represent one of the biggest shifts in abortion law since 1967, although the core 1967 time limits stay in place for clinical procedures.
The issue has provoked fierce debate.
Religious leaders and campaigners have called the clause dangerous and extreme, while medical bodies such as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and groups such as the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) charity have urged support.
