For decades, abortion has been legal in the United Kingdom up to 24 weeks—the same time period that was guaranteed by Roe v. Wade—and later in exceptional circumstances when approved by two doctors. But last week, British lawmakers voted to decriminalize abortion beyond these limits—which would allow women to end their own pregnancies at any stage, for any reason, with no legal repercussions.
Members of parliament voted in favor of this amendment after just two hours of debate in the House of Commons, with 379 to 137 in favor of the change. It will now advance to parliament’s second chamber, the House of Lords, for review.
The amendment’s supporters argue that full decriminalization is the next frontier in reproductive rights. In principle, they argue, no woman should be put through the upsetting ordeal of a criminal investigation after her pregnancy ends. Nor should a woman be prosecuted for ending her own pregnancy. They believe abortion should be seen as a human right.
In fact, another proposed amendment—which did not advance to a vote—would have gone even further, explicitly enshrining abortion as a human right, essentially removing all regulations and allowing healthcare professionals to abort viable babies on demand up until birth as well as allowing women self-inducing abortions at home.
Stella Creasy, the Labour MP sponsoring the more radical of the two amendments, argued that “U.S. colleagues warn of the compromises made in the Barack Obama and Joe Biden years on securing abortion rights that left them so exposed.”
But for some, the lesson from America is quite different. Many British feminists denounced the new amendment as wrong in principle, and counterproductive in strategy. They warn that when one side of a controversial movement goes too far, the result is that the pendulum swings too far the other way. Responding to Creasy, Janice Turner, a columnist for The Times of London and a prominent feminist, wrote on X: “No, the lesson on abortion rights from America is uphold public consensus. Not pursue extreme change by the back door which will fuel an anti-choice backlash.”
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Author: Madeleine Kearns
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