Guest Post: "If my amendment is passed, Nicola Packer will go down in history as the last woman in England and Wales to be prosecuted for an abortion"

[RhiannonEMumsnet]

73% of Mumsnet users want abortion to be decriminalised which is why it was included in the GE2024 Mumsnet Manifesto - one of twelve policy asks for the new government, based on the experiences and opinions that millions of women have shared on site.

I agree.

Like many of you I’ve been horrified by the increasing number of women who’ve been arrested by police for suspected illegal abortion.

In the last five years, more than 100 women have been investigated under the ‘Offences Against the Person Act’ 1861. Eight of these women have appeared in court. One has been jailed. Among those arrested have been women who’ve suffered natural miscarriages and stillbirths, and others who have gone into unexplained premature labour.

It’s just wrong. It’s a waste of taxpayers’ money. It’s a waste of the judiciary’s time.

As the Mumsnet Manifesto said, it’s also not in the public interest to prosecute. We know that no woman ends her pregnancy out of malice – only out of desperation.

It was meeting Nicola Packer at her trial for alleged illegal abortion at Isleworth Crown Court in southwest London that strengthened my resolve to push for a change in the law. My colleague Tracy Gilbert MP and I spoke to her days before she was unanimously cleared by a jury.

Seeing Nicola in the dock, afraid and humiliated, my heart went out to her.

Nicola has been hugely traumatised by her prosecution – having maintained throughout her trial that she was unaware she was any more than 10 weeks’ pregnant. She has also spent the last four-and-a-half years waiting for her case to come to court, living in constant fear that she could go to jail.

To me it was obvious Nicola was not the suspect, but the victim. The victim of a Victorian-era law that criminalises women who end their own pregnancies.

That’s why, last month in Parliament, I tabled an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill. A move that has the backing of more than 100 MPs and 50 organisations including Mumsnet, the British Medical Association and five medical Royal Colleges.

My amendment targets the draconian ‘Offences Against the Person Act’ of 1861. This law means abortion is still a criminal offence in England and Wales except under specific circumstances. If you try to end your own pregnancy at any gestation outside the law the maximum sentence is life in prison – the most severe penalty for an illegal abortion in the world.

In 2019 my colleagues in Westminster repealed this archaic law for Northern Ireland. My amendment will simply bring legislation up to date in England and Wales – and in line with 50 other places worldwide including Ireland, Canada, France, Australia and New Zealand.

My amendment will not, however, remove any important safeguards. The Abortion Act of 1967 will be unchanged. This means you can legally access an abortion provided you meet certain criteria: you are under 24 weeks’ pregnant, you meet one of seven medical reasons, and have your abortion signed off by two doctors. My amendment will not change any law regarding the provision of abortion services within a healthcare setting or the provision of telemedicine.

Parliament is expected to vote on the amendment in early summer. If it gets passed, all cases currently going through the criminal justice system will end. And Nicola Packer will go down in history as the last woman in England and Wales to be prosecuted for an abortion.

If you agree that abortion must be decriminalised, support my amendment by contacting your MP using this link: https://www.bpas.org/our-cause/campaigns/abortion-law-reform/

I don’t lack compassion. I just see how this bill can be abused. If it passes you will be raising a glass to celebrate the killing of healthy viable human beings.

I don’t agree with abortion at all except where the mother’s life is at risk or the child will be dreadfully disabled. It’s not the mother’s body it’s a child and killing it is murder.

I posted the link earlier from the Times radio interview with Tonia Antoniazzi, in which Stig Abel asked,
“Any woman could end a pregnancy at any time, 35 weeks, 36 weeks, 37 weeks, without committing an offence. And you are comfortable with that?”
To which she replied,
“Yes I am.”
Are the mumsnetters backing her amendment still convinced that this is good for women?

link posted below

Sorry, at 11 seconds in the radio interview
https://x.com/i/status/1932364290549325939

Aborting a viable baby is obviously wrong to me. I'm old enough to remember abortion if the mother or child was at risk, which two doctors had to agree. I also remember people getting social abortions, it was just so inconvenient to be pregnant again. I do think the rights of the (potential) baby are now really ignored. I may be a bit biased once being in a ward of women very keen to get rid of their perfectly viable babies, while mine had died and I had to have a surgical removal of my much desired baby.

That must have been an incredibly painful time.
I agree with you.

I really am so sorry for what you went through, I can only imagine how painful that was and still is.

However, the law and access to abortion won’t be changed by decriminalising. Women will still go through the same process as now with 2 doctors signing off under certain conditions. Are there women who have repeated abortions? Sadly yes. What’s your alternative? Force them to give birth? Sterilise them against their will? I knows midwives working in BPAS who will counsel women about contraception and offer many options, but the individual has bodily autonomy. In the same way I can’t stop someone drinking to excess, or smoking, even though I disagree with their choice.

I'm shocked @mnhq has chosen this as a campaign. Not that I've seen a thread about it in Campaigns - only loads of sponsored threads (ads). Whether you agree or disagree with it (I disagree with it), it's a matter of conscience, far removed from campaigning on things like maternity rights and child welfare. It's the sort of thing a government would do as a free vote, not something that people should be assumed to support.

MNHQ - am I right in thinking that this campaign is not listed on your campaigns page or on the campaigns board? Sorry if I have missed it.

Your compassion for the mother shines through your post .
But compassion for the unwanted baby is understandably harder .

I have compassion for the women… it’s just not limited to the women.

Yes - I’m coming off Mumsnet if they are supporting the termination of heathy full term babies . It’s grotesque.

Thank you Tonia

I'm really uncomfortable with being counted as a Mumsnetter if Mumsnet are presenting this campaign as representative of their however-many-million user base. I feel used.

I don't think I'm some kind of outlier, either. I'm sure there was a study recently that asked people if they were happy with current abortion laws and people generally said they thought the law was about right. Then they told people the limit was 24 weeks, and suddenly a lot of people were much less in favour. 12 weeks was seen as generally acceptable. Clearly it's a while since I read this, so people are free to Google it and check I've got the gist of it right, but my point is not to argue the rights and wrongs of it, but to state that it's unlikely that Mumsnet is actually very representative of its users on this issue. As viability improves at a younger gestational age, people's comfort with mid or late stage abortion diminishes.

While MNHQ might be sincerely convinced of the importance of this campaign, I don't think it's right to do it as a Mumsnet campaign. Justine et al can campaign as individuals on this.

Thatloquacious - totally agree.

The cheery smile in the OP above such a serious topic is odd too.

Mumsnet have been brilliant about allowing space to argue about the trans issue and I really appreciate that freedom of expression which is being shut down elsewhere.

It is uncomfortable to realise that Mumsnet supports the termination of viable full term babies.

However I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the different views without name calling and abuse.

This isn’t about supporting the termination of full term pregnancies. The abortion act will remain unchanged, and similarly any baby born alive will immediately have personhood and any mistreatment or lack of care will remain a crime. This is about recognising that a woman has bodily autonomy even when she is pregnant, she is not just a vessel for pregnancy, and that criminalising desperate women is in no-one’s interest other than those that want the justice system to be a conduit for their own vindictive morality.

“those that want the justice system to be a conduit for their own vindictive morality.”

I believe the baby is a human life worthy of protection once it would be a viable life form.

It’s not about “vindictive morality”.

By that argument homocide where people say they were acting in self defence shouldn’t be investigated. Should shop-lifting be allowed where people are hungry? Should child neglect be allowed if the parents mental health is poor?

By these arguments if a trial causes distress to the accused the trial shouldn't take place. It's totally illogical.

The argument seems to be that it’s ok for the mother to terminate a viable full term baby but it’s a criminal act of murder if someone else causes the baby’s deliberate death .
That suggests the baby is the mother’s possession rather than a person with rights. That cannot be morally right .

This, and also, what is the difference between this and infanticide, really? I don't see how someone can call for one to be decriminalised without the other. And then the potential for abuse and coercion is clear.

There have always been men who pressure women into to abortions - it seems like nowadays they can pretty much order a pack of tablets to the house and coerce the woman to take them at any point up to birth.

I also want it decriminalised
this is the U.K.

Greek - what do you mean?