Urgent action for UK Parliament to protect women’s essential reproductive rights

In a Joint Position Statement on Reproductive Rights, more than 30 organisations, including six Royal Medical Colleges and the British Medical Association, are calling on the UK Parliament to immediately decriminalise abortion in England and Wales. This step would remove the threat of prosecution and risk of imprisonment for women seeking to end their pregnancies. It would ensure that women and girls in England and Wales have the same protections as their counterparts in Northern Ireland, France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. 

Recent prosecutions highlight the urgency of this issue. In the past two years alone, six women in England have faced criminal charges for ending or seeking to end their own pregnancies. Prior to this, there had only been three reported convictions for illegal abortion since the current law was introduced in 1861.

In one 2024 case, a teenager was arrested at midnight, held in custody for 19 hours, and later faced trial for allegedly ending her own pregnancy after experiencing a stillbirth. The trial forced her to relive deeply traumatic events, leaving her “completely broken,” according to the court.

Another prosecution, later dropped, involved a grieving young woman who “suffered so extensively”, according to her barrister. A psychiatric examination confirmed that the proceedings had had a profound effect on her.

The signatories are calling for legal reform to ensure that abortion law be grounded on the fundamental right of women to be able to access abortion and for abortion care to be treated like any other healthcare service, subject to the same high standards of regulation and quality monitoring.

Read the letter here.

Read the joint position statement here.