Lords vote to pardon women convicted of having an illegal abortion

The House of Lords has backed a move to pardon women who have been convicted of having an illegal abortion.

The amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill would also apply to women who were cautioned and would remove the women’s details from police systems, regardless of the outcome of the case.

It comes after a landmark move by MPs in June last year to decriminalise women terminating their own pregnancy.

Labour MP for Gower Tonia Antoniazzi, who brought forward the amendment, said she had been moved after seeing women investigated by police over suspected illegal abortions.

Labour’s former health minister Baroness Thornton told peers there are women who have been convicted, and more who were investigated but not convicted, who have to permanently disclose this in a DBS check, because abortion offences are classed as violent crimes.

The upper chamber supported by 180 votes to 58, a majority of 122, to support Lady Thornton’s amendment to pardon those women.

Peers also rejected an attempt to overturn the decision by MPs to decriminalise women terminating their own pregnancy.

Conservative peer Baroness Monckton of Dallington Forest tabled an amendment in the Lords to remove the “radical proposal” from the draft law, which she said was passed in the Commons “without any evidence, scrutiny, public consultation or impact assessment”.

She argued that decriminalisation actually endangers women “by removing the current legal deterrent against administering an abortion away from a clinical setting right up to birth”.

Her amendment was rejected by 185 votes to 148, majority 37.

The upper chamber also rejected a bid to make it mandatory for a pregnant woman to have an in-person consultation before lawfully being prescribed medicine for the termination of a pregnancy at home.

Under the current law, it is legal to take prescribed medication at home if a woman is less than 10 weeks pregnant.

The Government changed the regulations during the first Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020, allowing women to have medical abortions at home following a phone or video consultation.

This change was made permanent in 2022, so women can take pills at home for gestation of up to nine weeks and six days.

Tory peer Baroness Stroud argued that in-person consultations are safer because they allow women’s gestational age to be reliably verified, protect against coercion and abuse, and allow for possible health risks to be checked.

Labour peer Baroness Blackstone, who chairs the trustees of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, argued that telemedical abortion is “effective, safe and improves access to care”.

The House of Lords rejected by 191 votes to 119, majority 72, a bid to move back to compulsory in-person consultations.

Peers went on to reject further amendments, one to create an offence of obtaining abortion pills by lying, and another to require an in-person consultation to obtain abortion pills if the pregnant person is under 18.

Abortion in England and Wales remains a criminal offence except with authorised providers 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.

Efforts to change the law to protect women from prosecution follow repeated calls to repeal sections of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act after abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in 2019.

Under the amendment voted through in the Commons last year, it would remain the case that medics or others who facilitate an abortion after the 24-week time limit could still face prosecution if the change becomes law.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, opposed the decriminalisation of women terminating their own pregnancies, because it “risks making an imperfect situation worse”.

She said: “Though its intention may not be to change the 24-week abortion limit, it undoubtedly risks eroding the safeguards and enforcement of those legal limits and, inadvertently, undermining the value of human life.”

Justice minister Baroness Levitt told peers that the Government “maintains a neutral stance on abortion in England and Wales”.