Abortion decriminalisation ‘undermines feminism’ - Kathleen Stock

[IwantToRetire]

The historic vote has divided public opinion, with many welcoming the “hard-won victory” for women, and others warning that it goes too far.

Kathleen Stock, a former philosophy professor at the University of Sussex, who was forced to quit her job following a row with the institution over her views on gender rights and its transgender policy, was among those criticising the ruling.

“Late-term abortions kill babies,” she said. “Viable babies.”

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, she added: “There is no good case for full decriminalisation as voted for today. And there is no genuine political will for it either, because most people haven’t been slowly boiled in a vat of hyperliberal feminism and progressive technocracy like overheating frogs, until they can’t tell which way is up.

“All this will do is further undermine the legitimacy of <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/ThZhc/www.telegraph.co.uk/feminism/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">feminism generally (by association, even if some feminists are actually against it) and also undermine public trust in lawmakers (How could this have been decided so quickly without any proper consultation or discussion of a wide range of views? Why wasn’t it in the manifesto, if it is so important?).”

available in full at https://archive.is/ThZhc

Extracts from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/18/abortion-decriminalisation-undermines-feminism/

I’m not sure what you mean by insurance companies providing care for a child?

I share your concerns.

I'm interested in the claim that women will no longer be investigated. I'm not sure that's the case but I'm happy to be corrected by someone with greater knowledge. I thought the amendment meant that women who induce their own late term abortions would not be prosecuted rather than they would not be investigated.

If the amendment means that there's will be no investigation then we have also potentially decriminalised infanticide for any pre term births by assuming that all self induced late term abortions result in the delivery of a dead baby.

I think it's possible there will be more rather than fewer investigations.

Advocates still say shit like this when Carla Foster blatantly tried to get rid of her full-term baby with abortion pills, lying about the gestation. She should still be in jail for that tbh

They will do exactly the same with assisted dying. Boundaries will be pushed and pushed.

And what is unfair and hypocritical is that the CPS fairly recently charged a girl who was a troubled child who killed her baby - just after giving birth alone, during the night in her family sitting room, after going through a denied pregnancy ( her mother had not noticed either) - with murder instead of infanticide.

She was found guilty ( after a different requirement for proof given the murder rather than infanticide charge) and sent to 12 years in prison (instead of for psychiatric treatment).

She could have taken the abortion pills and given birth to a dead or dying baby ( suffocated by lack of oxygen from the placenta and starved) and all would have been well.

The majority on Mumsnet were certain she was an evil murderess. Certain the jury would und err stand the issues and know what they were doing.

It is like people, including me, finding the slaughter of a lamb horrific beyond words but a packaged leg of a lamb in the supermarket absolutely fine. Here the package is the womb.

I agree.

The BMA has issued guidance on the laws and regulations etc. that remain in place now that abortion is decriminalised.

The guidance says that fraudulently obtaining abortion pills for oneself or for someone else can be prosecuted under the Fraud Act 2006.

Presumably the BMA had legal input when drafting its guidance and is not just making things up!

Can't say I am unmoved by a packaged leg of lamb in the supermarket. Meat aisles are grisly, bloody spectacles in which our hardened and cold attitude towards other creatures is fully manifested.

But many are unmoved.

Yes, people become desensitised.

Mindless libertarianism is killing compassion

https://unherd.com/2025/06/when-did-our-mps-form-a-death-cult/

Unheard often has libertarians writing though , ironically.

This legislation just seems a bit odd and rushed. Like a government that is always pleading poverty looking for cheap wins. Meat and drink to all the shroud wavers in the US. Partly how they managed to roll back Roe v Wade no doubt.

I suspect it's because the fatal act was administered to a fetus not an infant.

But the BMA also think a man can become a woman!

The BMA may (or may not) have sought legal advice, but one of the main requirements of the offence of fraud is either (1) that the offender intends to make a gain in money or other property for themself or another, or (2) that they intend to cause another person to suffer a loss in money or other property.

I don't see how lying to obtain abortion pills can amount to a gain or a loss in money or other property for anybody.

I can't see this argument at all.

We don't say grieving mothers of born children should be saved from investigation if there are reasons to think they may have killed their children. It would be absurd to say that.

I don't see how lying to obtain abortion pills can amount to a gain or a loss in money or other property for anybody

Good thing you are not a lawyer then!😁