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/

Another thought, women being investigated for late term miscarriages or still births is obviously heartbreaking.

But how is it any worse than parents being investigated for the sudden death of a their baby or child?

Are we saying parents shouldn’t be investigated because it’s too traumatic on top of losing their child? For me, it’s exactly the same. It’s horrific, traumatic and unimaginably painful but the alternative (parents not being investigated) is much worse.

What is the preferred method for carrying out an abortion at 37 weeks, does anyone know?

I'd imagine it involves the baby coming out of there one way or another, which is why I'm a bit 🤨 at the new buzzword of "forced birth".

https://www.rcog.org.uk/for-the-public/browse-our-patient-information/abortion-care/#:~:text=Surgical%20Dilatation%20and%20Evacuation%20(D&E,infection%20with%20any%20surgical%20abortion.

After 10 weeks of pregnancy, medical abortion (using pills) is no longer an option, In the UK, medical abortions are generally not performed after 10 weeks.

Late stage abortions involve Surgical Dilatation and Evacuation (D&E)( from 15 weeks of pregnancy )
The cervix is stretched and opened (dilatation) so that the pregnancy/ baby/ foetus can be removed using surgical instruments and suction.

Inducing a birth sounds easy enough but, what are the accepted methods of ensuring the foetus dies? are there any guidelines re. anaesthesia, for instance?

Oh I'm not suggesting any of it is nice and easy, far from it. I didn't really have a proper answer to the question, but was just pointing out to those who warn of "forced birth" that the mother is going to be giving birth regardless, there's obviously no magic spell that makes a late-stage pregnancy go away.

It’s a good question.
I can’t find any reference to anaesthesia for the baby. There is anaesthesia for the pregnant woman.

I don’t agree totally what I think should happen is the limit reduced (20 weeks ?) but services hugely increased. A lot of later abortions are due to delays as the services aren’t there. Also no more pills by post it should be after gestation is verified only then these cases won’t happen. Medical professionals need to oversee the correct use of the pills under 10 weeks only.

I don’t believe anaesthetic is given to the baby as prior to the procedure an injection is usually administered to stop the heart but also no anaesthetic for that. It is unclear what perception of pain a foetus has although certainly I’ve seen pain responses in premature babies from 24 weeks so it may depend on nerve development etc

Thank you @tropicalteas
It seems from my ( brief) reading that it is generally accepted that babies after 24 weeks can experience pain.
I think it is the case that abortion is the only invasive fetal intervention on a 24 plus week Fetus that proceeds without anaesthesia or analgesia.

Would the people in favour of decriminalisation if abortion up until birth be in favour of the late stage baby being given pain relief during the very traumatic procedure.

TRIGGER WARNING
This is a copy and paste of a description of an abortion taken from a medical paper. It offers reasons why pain relief should be given to the Fetus at a late stage of pregnancy

We argue that abortions before 13 weeks’ gestation do not involve any meaningful likelihood of pain for the fetus. Abortions after 13 weeks are typically either medical or surgical.8 Medical abortions involve a drug or drug combination provided to the patient to induce abortion. Today the drug combination is commonly mifepristone and misoprostol that do not kill the fetus. Fetal death follows either direct feticide (an injection of potassium chloride directly into the fetal heart or an injection of digoxin directly into the fetus or intra-amniotically) or the trauma of labour. The most common surgical technique is dilatation and evacuation (D&E). In a D&E, the cervix is dilated, the amniotic fluid drained, and the fetus is removed in pieces via several surgical manoeuvres using grasping forceps. Again fetal death follows either direct feticide performed before the D&E or the trauma of the D&E results in the death of the fetus.

https://jme.bmj.com/content/46/1/3

We don’t even euthanise dogs and cats without anaesthetic.
It’s abhorrent if the same humanity isn’t extended to actual humans.

Yes I agree after a certain stage (maybe 20 weeks to be sure) adequate pain relief / anaesthetic should absolutely be administered to the foetus

After reading about it, my opinion is that the proposal is barbaric. It's literally a proposal to allow women to kill babies up to full term, when they are perfectly viable.

I hope the proposal does not pass, but if it does, I hope they ensure that the baby does not suffer before it is dismembered.

@RhiannonEMumsnet what do you think about the range of views expressed in this thread about whether this is appropriate? It seems a controversial campaign for MN to have selected.

Just to add, I've just looked at the Mumsnet Manifesto and I do see that a Mumsnet survey found that most users agreed that women should not face criminal charges for abortion. I am now curious how the question was phrased, and what users may have understood it to mean. There is a big difference between "yeah I don't think abortion should be banned" and "it's fine to abort a full term baby".

The focus should really be on extending provision, faster and easier access to abortion care and medical checks and verification of gestation before for example pills are prescribed. There shouldn’t be this grey area over prosecuting women or investigating miscarriages etc it’s a smokescreen for the fact that abortion is in some areas and cases hard to access. If there were more clinics and better funded schemes then women would be able to have abortions earlier in a lot of cases reducing the late term abortions. In respect of later term I think there is an urgent need for discussion over how pain and suffering in the foetus is avoided.

All this discussion about abortions is utterly and completely missing the point. Abortions will continue to be regulated as they are now under the abortions act, with time limits and safeguards entirely unchanged.

Ireland decriminalised abortions in 2018, it did not lead to a wave of women deciding to end their own pregnancies at a late stage. So please stop all the ridiculous histrionics.

I Know I’ve already said this but

if it’s just histrionics and won’t change anything, the law doesn’t need to be changed.

It does need to be changed. It’s not just that women are being dragged through the courts under the current system, it’s also that the law should be crystal clear that a woman has autonomy over her own body. She is not, at any point in pregnancy, just a vessel for a foetus. If it comes down to a choice of foetus or mother, the mother should win every time with no questions asked.

And lots of people disagree with you. Lots of people believe a viable and healthy baby should have legal protection.

Over and above the mother? And you don’t see the appalling misogyny in that? There is absolutely no other situation at all where a person can be compelled to give up their own bodily autonomy to help another person. A father cannot be compelled to do anything at all to help his LIVING child, not even a blood test. If you really care about helping babies, you should be campaigning for compulsory organ donation and blood donations, not forced birth.

Nothing will convince me that a full term baby/foetus can be killed by abortion and no questions asked. If this happens and the baby is born alive then dies. Still no prosecution?

As soon as the baby is born alive it is a person, and entitled to full legal protection.

Ignore intentional abortions for a minute. If a heavily pregnant woman needs a medical intervention that will harm the foetus but save her life, what do you want to do? If she drinks alcohol, smokes cigarettes, eats something and gets ill, goes riding and falls, and that results in harm to the baby, do you want her arrested? This isn’t hypothetical, it is what is happening in the US right now. Should pregnant women be forced to stay at home or be locked up so that they can do no harm to the foetus.

I think you should refrain from telling people what they should or should not be passionate about.

If people were to reply in equally hyperbolic terms, they might suggest that if you absolutely do not want to have a baby, you should be forced to have the implant and to take the pill.

But that would be absolutely ridiculous.

I don’t believe in killing healthy and viable babies. Not a few days before they’re due to be born, not in the weeks after. It is a human life and experiences pain.

You are able to remove the human aspect of babies if they haven’t quite been born yet so are able to support this change. I cannot so I don’t.

“ If she drinks alcohol, smokes cigarettes, eats something and gets ill, goes riding and falls, and that results in harm to the baby, do you want her arrested? This isn’t hypothetical, it is what is happening in the US right now.”

Firstly, your hyperbole doesn’t convince me of anything.

Secondly, is that happening now in the uk under the current legislation? No? Then it doesn’t need to be changed.