By Andrew MacAskill
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s parliament voted on Tuesday to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales to stop a growing number of women from being investigated by police for terminating pregnancies under legislation dating back to the mid-19th century.
Abortions have been legal in England and Wales for almost 60 years but only up to 24 weeks and with the approval of two doctors. Women can face criminal charges if they decide to end a pregnancy after 24 weeks under a Victorian-era law that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
In Britain, criminal convictions for breaking this law are rare, but the number of prosecutions has increased following the COVID-19 pandemic when a change in the law allowed abortion pills to be taken at home to end pregnancies within 10 weeks of conception.
In a free vote in parliament, when politicians were not ordered to vote along party lines, lawmakers gave an initial approval by 379 votes to 137 for an amendment to stop prosecutions for women who end pregnancies in all circumstances.
Medical professionals who assist women in obtaining an abortion outside the 24-week limit could still face prosecution.
The proposal could still be altered or even voted down as it is a part of a greater bill that is making its way through the House of Commons and the unelected upper chamber of parliament.
Labour Member of Parliament Tonia Antoniazzi, who proposed the amendment, said the current law had been used to investigate 100 women in the last five years, including some who had given birth prematurely or had been forced into abortions by abusive partners.
“Each one of these cases is a travesty enabled by our outdated abortion law,” she told parliament. “This is not justice, it is cruelty and it has got to end.”
The vote was part of a broader government criminal justice bill that if passed in its entirety would bring the abortion laws in England and Wales in line with other Western countries including France, Canada and Australia.
‘NO CONSEQUENCES’
Some politicians warned the proposed amendment was being rushed through parliament and could have unintended consequences.
Rebecca Paul, a Conservative member of parliament, warned “if this becomes law, fully developed babies up to term could be aborted by a woman with no consequences.”
The amendment would revoke parts of a law passed in 1861 by a then all-male parliament that made deliberately ending a pregnancy a crime and stipulated that those who carried it out could be “kept in penal servitude for life”.
A change to the law in 1967 permitted abortions in certain circumstances, but left the 19th century criminal prohibition in place.
Between 1861 and 2022, only three women in Britain were convicted of having illegal abortions, according to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which works to improve women’s healthcare. But since then, six women have been charged by police, the group said. One woman has been jailed.
In May, a British woman, Nicola Packer, was acquitted after taking prescribed abortion medicine when she was around 26 weeks pregnant, beyond the legal limit of 10 weeks for taking such medication at home.
The 45-year-old told jurors during her trial, which came after a four-year police investigation, that she did not realise she had been pregnant for so long.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill, editing by Elizabeth Piper and Sandra Maler)
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