This week the British Pregnancy Advisory Service launched the We Trust Women campaign to remove abortion from the criminal law across the UK. We believe it is both absurd and offensive that in the 21st century a woman in this country could be imprisoned for ending her pregnancy without the legal authorisation of two doctors under legislation passed before women could vote. We want the removal of sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act, which call for a woman who induces her own miscarriage to face life imprisonment, alongside anyone who assists her. Our campaign is supported by many women’s organisations, including the Royal College of Midwives, the Fawcett Society, the Family Planning Association and the Women’s Equality party.
The 1967 act did not remove those offending sections of the OAPA; rather, it stipulated that a woman would not be prosecuted if two doctors agreed she met certain conditions. That act was pioneering and profoundly important – yet it was not the triumph of the women’s rights movement as it is often perceived to be, but a response to the growing public health problem of backstreet abortions. It placed decision-making firmly in the hands of doctors as to whether a woman would suffer as a result of continuing her pregnancy, painting women’s agency almost completely out of the picture.
Decriminalising abortion would change everything – and nothing. It would not increase the number of women needing abortion services or the gestation at which they are carried out, as has been shown in countries where abortion has been decriminalised. Abortion is already tightly regulated in the same way as other healthcare procedures, with staff bound by professional guidelines. This has nothing to do with abortion law.
But it would reflect much more accurately the way in which we see women today. It would put women needing abortion care on the same legal footing as any person requiring medical care – not asking for permission to make a decision about their own body but in partnership with their care provider. As a film to accompany the campaign highlights, it would be a marker of just how far women have come since 1861.
And there are important practical improvements that decriminalisation would bring. The law has held back clinical improvements in care that have benefitted women in other countries, in particular the ability to use certain medications at home for early terminations after they have been prescribed by a doctor – as is recommended by the World Health Organisation. We also know the threat of prosecution that is unique to abortion puts doctors off entering this field of women’s healthcare. On a regular basis pregnant women with complex medical needs whose health conditions mean they must be treated in a hospital setting rather than a community clinic are compelled to continue an unwanted pregnancy because they cannot find doctors willing or able to help them. These pregnancies can put their health seriously at risk.
Prosecutions under the OAPA are happening. Just before Christmas, a young mother from county Durham was jailed for two and a half years for inducing her pregnancy in the third trimester using pills obtained online. Later abortions may raise particular moral concerns for many people, but the imprisonment of women should equally so. We know that even women well within the legal limit are obtaining abortion pills online. They may be young women too scared to tell their parents, they may be victims of domestic violence who worry their partner will find out if they visit a clinic. They may also be women who do not know how to access abortion services, or are unable to do so because of their asylum status. The accessibility of this medication means the risk of women breaking the law is now greater than at any point since 1967.
We may question whether these women would be handed the life sentence that can accompany unlawful abortion. But that is beside the point. If we do not think women should go to prison for ending their own pregnancy we should not accept a law that says they should. Taking abortion out of the criminal law will not lead to more women taking their own health into their hands in this way. But decriminalising this procedure – which has enabled women to live their lives as they see fit and bear their children at the time they think is right – would acknowledge and help destigmatise the experience of the one in three women who will need an abortion in their lifetimes. Please support the We Trust Women campaign today.
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Clare Murphy is director of external affairs at bpas