UK House of Lords passes legislation legalising DIY abortion up to and during birth

RHODA WILSON for THE EXPOSE

On Wednesday, the UK House of Lords voted to approve a clause in the Crime and Policing Bill that removes criminal liability for women who self-induce abortions at any stage of pregnancy, including up to and during birth.

This decision, passed by 185 votes to 148, means that women in England and Wales will no longer face prosecution for performing their own abortions, regardless of gestational age or reason – such as sex-selective termination.

Clause 208 of the Crime and Policing Bill, originally introduced in the House of Commons by Labour Member of Parliament (“MP”) Tonia Antoniazzi, was debated in the Commons in June 2025 for only 46 minutes and passed with 379 MPs for and 137 MPs against.

The House of Lords’ vote on Wednesday followed a failed attempt by Baroness Rosa Monckton to remove the clause entirely.  The change does not alter the current 24-week legal limit for abortion but eliminates criminal sanctions for self-induced terminations beyond that point.

Critics, including Christian groups and other pro-life groups like Right to Life and Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (“SPUC”), argue the Bill passed by the Lords undermines safeguards, increases risks to women’s health and could lead to more late-term abortions, including of viable babies.

When the Bill was passed through the House of Commons in June 2025, Catholic Archbishop John Sherrington said,

“New Clause 1 lifts any criminal liability for women performing their abortions for any reason, at any time … Women will be even more vulnerable to manipulation, coerced and forced abortions. This legal change will also discourage medical consultation and make the use of abortion pills for dangerous late-term, at-home abortions more likely.”

“New Clause 1” was renumbered Clause 191 while passing through the legislative process in the House of Commons.

Last month, Right to Life warned that Clause 191 “would change the law so it would no longer be illegal for women to perform their own abortions for any reason, including sex-selective purposes, and at any point up to and during birth, likely leading to a significant increase in the number of women performing dangerous late-term abortions at home.”

Clause 191 was renumbered to Clause 208 during the House of Lords’ Report Stage.

Ahead of the vote in the House of Lords, Archbishop Sherrington said, “Apart from the further threat Clause 208 poses to the lives of unborn babies and the health of their mothers, this change would leave women more susceptible to coercion and abuse.”

Michael Robinson, Executive Director of SPUC, said, “These profound changes to the Abortion Act are being pushed through without any pre-legislative scrutiny, public consultation or a detailed impact assessment … those supporting these changes have done so based on ideology and without a proper understanding of their adverse effects.”

Former Health Minister Maria Caulfield warned that the change would mean “infanticide … would become possible with no legal consequence,” adding that “our society will be damaged and its moral credibility greatly diminished.”

The Lords also voted to reject an amendment by Baroness Philippa Stroud to reinstate in-person consultations with a doctor to be able to receive abortion pills.  “A return to such appointments, removed during [covid] lockdown, would have better protected against women taking the pills after the ten-week limit which they are designed for,” The Christian Institute said.

Adding, “Abortion pills are not supposed to be used beyond very early stages, but the current ‘pills-by-post’ scheme allows women easy access to the drugs regardless of their child’s gestational age.”

The pills-by-post scheme is not only deadly to babies.  SPUC’s Robinson highlighted an example of the serious harm to the mother that the state-sanctioned, self-administered, home abortion scheme poses.

“We know that the ‘pills by post’ policy has led to a massive increase in 999 calls and ambulance call-outs, at the same time removing the important safeguard of a face-to-face discussion with a doctor,” he said.

“As one peer pointed out, the lack of this vital protection was brought sharply into focus during the Worby Case. This was where Stuart Worby used a female friend to obtain abortion drugs using telemedicine. He later used these to cause his partner to abort their child. The side effects of this action were so bad that the victim will never be able to have a child of her own.”

Referring to the House of Lords’ vote on 18 March, Right to Life said, “While the result tonight is tragic, we want you to know it is incredibly important that we fight on.”

Polling shows only 1% of Britons support abortion up to birth, with 89% of the public and 91% of women opposing it.

“Another poll shows that more than half of the general public agrees that it should remain the case that a woman is breaking the law if she has an abortion of a healthy baby after the current 24-week legal time limit up until birth. Only 16% disagreed,” Life News said.

A poll commissioned by SPUC in 2024 showed that the public did not back decriminalisation of abortion.  “When presented with the facts of what the change [to the Crime and Policing Bill] actually meant, support plummeted to just one in eight,” Robinson said.

Strong public opposition to Clause 208 continues to this day.  Life News noted that “the introduction of the clause to the Crime and Policing Bill caused a major backlash, which included 91% of 28,000 respondents to a poll run by The Telegraph saying they were opposed to the extreme law change that would be introduced by clause 208.”

Simon Calvert, deputy director of The Christian Institute, said, “It is unutterably grim that the House of Lords has voted to permit a woman to take the life of her baby just days before birth.”

“They have shown little regard for public feeling which is strongly opposed to this. They have dehumanised the unborn to a shocking new degree. And they have abandoned women,” he said.

The Bill now proceeds to Royal Assent, where it may become law. If enacted, it will represent one of the most significant changes to UK abortion law since 1967.

“What happens in the UK rarely stays there,” New Zealand’s Family First said.

“New Zealand decriminalised abortion in 2020, allowing terminations up to 20 weeks on request and beyond in certain cases. Our abortion numbers have risen sharply (by around 37% from pre-law figures, reaching over 17,700 in 2024), coinciding with expanded telehealth access. The same ideological momentum that propelled Clause 208 through Westminster is already echoing in policy discussions here in New Zealand.”