Overview
- Peers advanced a Crime and Policing Bill clause that says a woman commits no offence for actions related to her own pregnancy, rejecting efforts to narrow the measure.
- The clause would end prosecutions of women at any stage of pregnancy, according to the text cited in the debate.
- The reform targets women’s liability and leaves the Abortion Act 1967’s 24-week framework for authorised providers as the governing standard.
- The bill also creates a route to pardon past convictions and to expunge related criminal records for women prosecuted under earlier laws.
- Official figures show abortions rose 11% in 2023 to the highest rate since 1967, with 89% in the first nine weeks and less than 2% between 20 and 24 weeks, data supporters cite to argue late procedures are rare while critics denounce the move as permitting abortion up to birth.