Abortion decriminalisation: abortion up to birth – why should we care?

This decision weakens important safeguards for both lives, women and unborn children, and the integrity of pregnancy care. By approving this measure and rejecting amendments that would have mitigated some of the risks it brings, parliamentarians have agreed to a government funded system that knowingly puts both lives at risk. 

Particularly shocking is the implication that there would be no criminal investigation or accountability even in cases where the life of an unborn child, capable of being born alive, is intentionally ended by the mother. In parliament, across the media, and in public conversation, we’ve heard strong opposition reflecting the horror felt by 99% of the British public, who recent polling shows do not support abortion up to birth.  

The new legislation has nothing to do with medically supervised abortion; late-stage procedures carried out in hospitals because there is a clear risk to life or serious health concerns in pregnancy. These are situations already provided for under UK law. Instead, it is calculatingly simple, intended purely to absolve a woman from the legal consequences of terminating her own pregnancy at any stage, and beyond established medical and regulatory frameworks. In effect, parliament has voted to facilitate dangerous backstreet abortions, where self-induced abortion up to birth is legitimised. 

A society that seeks to protect children from harm after birth should also consider how those protections apply before birth. To treat unborn children as the property of their mother, and as though they alone – in all of our human family – fall entirely outside the law’s protection, risks redefining the very purpose of safeguarding the vulnerable. With pregnancy comes a unique set of circumstances where there are two lives whose vulnerability requires special regard. 

In rejecting Baroness Stroud’s amendment that would have reinstated in-person appointments, Peers voted in support of the current system of telemedicine that contributed to the death of Carla Foster’s daughter Lily. The NHS will continue to provide abortion pills based on a phone call, knowing that women have and may continue to self-administer abortions at home, outside of the recommended safe guidelines of ten weeks, up to and close to birth. However, unlike Lily – for whom there was some measure of legal justice in recognition that her life and manner of death mattered – other babies could have their lives forcibly ended and bodies disposed of, and society would never know.  

Although abortion was similarly decriminalised for Northern Ireland by Westminster in 2019, pills by post is not available there. This combination of decriminalisation for women combined with pills by post (a system designed to be without meaningful clinical oversight) would only apply to women in England and Wales. That raises serious questions about safety and isolation for women, but also about accountability for the activists lobbying for it and the providers tasked with offering such unsafe healthcare.  None of this is a victory for women. It is a tragic failure.  

Once abortion was framed as a tragic but rare necessity. Over six decades, that ​“rare necessity” became abortion on request up to 24 weeks of pregnancy; an extreme provision, double the limit compared with most European countries. This easy access to abortion (the latest recorded figures are the highest on record) on loosely interpreted ​“health grounds” accounts for over 98% of abortions. The normalisation that led to the acceptance of telemedical care for life and death decisions now demands closer scrutiny. We are witnessing the emergence of a troubling absurdity: a national health system providing services that are increasingly de-medicalised and seem prepared to risk the life and health of both woman and unborn children, all while still being framed as healthcare. 

Healthcare, by nature, implies care, oversight and the prioritisation of wellbeing. A model of abortion that minimises clinical involvement in pregnancy and even denies the existence of one patient (unless wanted or until unwanted) fails women and unborn children. Government data reveals that over 54 thousand women have been admitted to hospital with complications linked to medical abortions over the past five years.  

Stories have emerged in England and Scotland of forced abortions by abusive partners. When questioned as to any assessment made of the potential risks of decriminalising abortion for vulnerable women, including those who may be subject to coercion or abuse, and what safeguarding measures they plan to put in place to protect them, the government’s unsatisfactory response was that no assessment had been made. Women facing any form of pregnancy crisis deserve, at the very least, evidence-based care from our NHS, not isolation and the removal of protective structures of care. 

As this legislation continues its process, parliamentarians in both Houses must confront the consequences of this decision. There is an urgent need to think again. We urge them to strengthen, rather than weaken, an already extreme abortion law, ensuring appropriate medical safeguards and oversight, and expanding meaningful support systems. Those must include life-affirming pathways of support for women in difficult circumstances who would rather, if possible, choose to continue in their pregnancy. A compassionate society does not abandon women to abusive partners or leave those in crisis to act alone; it walks alongside them, upholding the dignity and value of every human life, both before and after birth. 

Over sixty years, much of the church has remained silent and appeared to assent to the pro-choice culture that has led us here. The votes at Westminster show us what happens when society permits the unlimited, intentional taking of life to be framed as compassionate healthcare and celebrates it as a symbol of autonomy. The normalisation of abortion begins by dehumanising the unborn and leads us to the point where even those ready to be born can be killed without repercussion and discarded as if they were nothing.  

Ultimately this extreme ideology dehumanises and devalues us as all. But both lives matter to God. 

So, it’s time to imagine better. We must be ready to create laws that respect and protect both lives in pregnancy. It is past time to establish a system of healthcare – even if outside of the NHS – that exists to enable the life, health and wellbeing of both. Perhaps most difficult of all, to create culture change so that every life is affirmed regardless of age, stage, ability or circumstance – simply because it is human.  

We all deserve better than abortion. The battle against a culture of death and for a culture which is truly just, humane and compassionate must continue.