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/

It is not a good thing. Deliberate killing of a near to term baby is not acceptable. Unless under medical supervision due to serious health risks. These cases should be investigated. So will the providers of these pills now be prosecuted if they are misused.

@Ohthatsabitshit I don’t believe the plan is to prevent any scrutiny at all, in that I’m pretty sure most if not all late miscarriages or stillbirths at this age and stage of pregnancy would be automatically examined (I guess unless a woman volunteers to medical staff that she deliberately aborted using pills?). Most women who have had a late miscarriage or stillbirth are desperate for answers as to why it happened and whether there is a way to stop it happening again, so I think from a medical point of view it would still be looked into.

However unlike some previous cases such as the one above, the difference is that if abortion medication was found to be the cause of death of the baby then nobody would be reporting it to police anymore as not prosecutable anyway. And certainly no woman aborting by themselves at home with pills would be facing court appearances or jail time (in the case above she was initially sentenced to spend a minimum of 14 months in jail from memory, though in the event she was released after about a month following an appeal where she received a suspended sentence instead). I guess in the circumstances @JumpingPumpkin alludes to, if the woman said she’d no idea how the abortion medication came to be there ie suspected she had been deliberately given it by a controlling man etc, then that would still be a crime so would be reported?! At least bodily assault of the woman or something. Though honestly am not sure of the technicalities. And if it was more of a coercion thing then I guess it’s the coercive control that’s the crime but now basically relies on women self-reporting this.

I can’t disagree with what she’s said in the longer X thread that Iwanttoretire has posted above. I agree that there should have been a proper and more meaningful review and debate around this rather than it being dealt with so quickly and I do think that having a time limit on abortions is the morally right thing except for medically necessary reasons. I know that view is unpopular and I’ll get called an anti feminist but there are two humans involved and there comes a point where their competing rights have to be balanced.

I also think that it could be an issue for wider feminism because I am not sure that the general public opinion would be supportive of more later term abortions so if there’s a perception that feminists have been pushing for that (even if that’s not true and feminists aren’t one universal group with the same views) that could create wider resistance or dislike to feminist causes more generally. That’s just my speculation re public opinion of course because they didn’t consult or poll about it.

It really wasn’t. This has been in preparation and worked on for years. Yes, the final vote was a short one, because the debate and exploration and review has already happened.
The actual experts in reproductive health are in favour. We shouldn’t be prosecuting/investigating women who have lost children under laws that are from the mid-19th century.

This legislation is NOT about more late term abortions! That is not what has changed at all.

I think it’s important to say that stillbirths aren’t routinely investigated for evidence of deliberate abortion, however where medical staff have enough suspicion to report it to police as a possibility (which is a fairly high threshold generally as it’s certainly not the reason the majority of stillbirths occur and nobody wants to deliberately put a grieving woman through more stress without very good cause) then it would be. For example in the case I quoted above suspicions were raised because her story didn’t really add up plus she actually outright told medical staff what she had done so I can see at that point they had no choice really but to report a suspected and confessed crime to police. I have to say I do feel sorry for her, she was clearly very troubled and is clearly very remorseful. At the same time I still think she shouldn’t have done it personally.

Babies at late term have unambiguous interests of their own. They are not just narcissistic extensions of mother. They are not parasites or invaders. They are human beings. They are dependent human beings and is weird to see feminists who talk about value of care and dependence become psychopathically detached about the value of the life of a dependent, viable baby because the mother doesn't want it. It sounds dementedly callous to try to deny the interests of babies in this sort of issue by defining them out of existence, or just ignoring the fact they do exist at all.

I disagree with KS. Until the foetus is born it doesn’t have rights or interests. It’s not a human being until it’s born. Foetal personhood means that the woman becomes an incubation vessel and loses her rights over her own body because the foetus’ rights and interests have to be considered too. The living, breathing woman’s interests and rights should always be the most important, and the only ones that should be considered. Foetal personhood is a slippery slope that leads to brain dead women being kept on life support to incubate a foetus to viability.

I think it’s fair to object to how quickly it happened. Perhaps more resistance was expected, which would have given the opportunity to explore the issues more thoroughly.

Access to abortion hasn’t changed, as PPs have said.

It wouldn’t surprise me if an alternative crime was identified to prosecute women who have deliberately behaved horribly.

However the position of a pregnant woman is very special and specific. She is awash with hormones. The personhood of the baby is entirely dependent on her. Harming the baby is more like an act of self harm, imo.
More akin to ‘suicide, when the balance of their mind is disturbed’ as the phrase used to be.

I’m actually on the pro life end of the spectrum but recognise I can only make that choice for me, not for other women. Simply because I cannot make a call about what someone else’s body is to go through.

There is no scenario where we can choose what happens to someone else’s body. We can’t make irresponsible adults use birth control, let alone sterilise them. We can’t make all men be circumcised, or all women have pierced ears.

Not true. Admittedly a very very few cases. However they do exist. And should be investigated.

I agree with Kathleen Stock. This change will make pro-choicers (like me) look crazy. It is so extreme I can't believe it has passed. The uninformed majority will begin to think that all feminists and pro-choicers agree with this completely immoral law.

In essence any women can abort their own foetus or baby at any stage of the pregnancy and not face any charges. Yes only small numbers will do this. With the prevalence of abortion pills online this will be easier than many think to do.

Some vulnerable women may also be coerced into this. Some who want to avoid the embarrassment of going to a doctor could now terminate without any support at all. For so many reasons this is a terrible change.

@FeralWoman yes I can see many people would agree with you on that and legally this is the position in the UK currently, though in practice the whole idea of a time limit before needing to have a very valid reason such as the mother’s life being threatened by the pregnancy continuing means that in practice there is some sort of balancing of competing potential rights here between the mother and the foetus. I don’t personally agree with this position, and I think it’s a lot harder to argue after 24 weeks when there is a reasonable chance of survival after birth with modern medical care, and certainly after about 28 weeks when the majority of premature babies would be expected to survive. But yes I think she is unreasonable here not to acknowledge that foetal personhood is not a thing legally in the UK whatever her own feelings on the matter.

I’m not surprised….she is wrong obviously.

how can’t he personhood of a foetus trump the personhood of the person growing it. This is distilling female personhood down to reproduction and maintaining that at women’s detriment.

yuck. Women’s value isnt rooted it what she does with her womb.

When has this happened in the UK?

@bigvig I agree with you there are other reasons other than ethical/moral objections that this is a horrible change. I’m pretty sure it’s not actually all that safe to do this at home at such a late stage of pregnancy, plus potentially very emotionally traumatic compared to a surgical procedure or supervised medical termination in hospital which is what would actually be recommended medically, where potentially an initially alive premature baby would be delivered at home. In the case I referred to above the mother ended up critically ill and had to have a hysterectomy ultimately, I presume due to uncontrolled bleeding. I worry people won’t understand this.

I’m also shocked it was passed. As you say it seems a fairly extreme position which MPs seem to have waved through as being pro women’s rights and absolutely I think they assumed all pro-choices and feminists would be 100 percent in support of the change. I read a statement from Keir Starmer which was very much “of course we must support women’s rights” kind of thing @myplace It seems like there was some public polling with wildly varying results reported. But it was all very last minute. As a GP and someone who is generally pro-life I had no idea this was even on the cards imminently (I’d been vaguely aware there had been some chat about possibly making some changes for a while in the background following these handful of cases since the pandemic).

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/abortion-bill-vote-decriminalise-bpas-law-uk-b2771407.html

I respected Doc Stock specifically for how balanced and measured she was in Material Girls, sometimes even a bit too measured. But in this she isn't. Decriminalising this kind of late abortion is about harm reduction and it should be evidenced based. Maybe there hasn't been enough debate, and maybe this is the wrong bill, but want to see evidence that those things are true. Not just labelling it anti-feminist.

And if some women are stupid or selfish or coerced into doing this then I'd like to see evidence that criminalising them - which apparently has increasingly been happening - actually puts any of these women off, compared to the danger that they will become increasingly afraid to seek medical help if things go wrong and (as pp have said) to the trauma of a criminal investigation into a late miscarriage or stillbirth.

This is a complex balance of different factors and rights. Saying that other women who see things differently from her have been "slowly boiled in a vat of hyperliberal feminism and progressive technocracy like overheating frogs, until they can’t tell which way is up" is really shite. It's the kind of overheated rhetoric I'd expect from the worst of the US rightwing anti-abortion activists and not from a thoughtful UK academic. But then Twitter does seem to have that effect on people.

Badly done, Dr Stock. Badly done.

A late term self-induced termination at home is effectively unassisted childbirth. Women can and have died in this situation. Regardless of your views on abortion, how is this a good thing?

I am glad you pointed out the danger to women trying to self abort a late stage pregnancy. Probably alone. Which will result in the birth of a live or still born baby. When folk can't even buy more than two packets of paracetemol and yet can obtain these pills by post quite easily.

The problem seems to be getting abortifacient pills by post. We're not in lockdown any more. Why is this still a thing? And why is criminalising a small but increasing number of women the solution?

This change brings England and Wales’ law into line with Northern Ireland. I think it’s a good thing for women.

If discussion has been going on for years, why does Stella Creasy seem so confused about the implications of the amendment she proposed? (I know that this wasn’t the amendment voted on, but in theory she is an experienced parliamentarian and this is her area)

This is a transcript of Stella Creasy on news agents

"Emily Maitlis: When people talk about taking pills at 37 weeks, I had a baby at 37 weeks. There wouldn't be a custodial sentence, is that right?

Stella Creasey: No, no, no. We're talking about two different things.

EM: I'm just asking to clarify

SC: Yeah, there are separate criminal offences which would apply in this instance. As I say, Constance Marten has been done under grievous bodily harm. There are attempted murder offences.”

Not clear what she is arguing re: Constance Marten.

This is commentary on Creasy’s proposal from a reader in law, health and well-being at Strathclyde university.
https://www.strath.ac.uk/humanities/lawschool/blog/theabortiondecriminalisationamendmentsatwestminsterbadlawinthemaking/

“NC20 would remove all abortion-related offences from the law of England and Wales, not only for women acting in relation to their own pregnancies, but for everyone. This means that women could self-induce abortions at any stage of pregnancy without being guilty of any offence. But it would also remove any criminal sanctions for doctors who ignore the rules in the 1967 Act, and for abusive men who cause a non-consensual abortion by crushing abortion drugs and putting them in a partner’s drink, or by kicking or beating a heavily pregnant woman in the stomach…, it is for someone else to repair the damage done by removing the existing crimes from the criminal law and enact a new crime that can be used against violent and coercive men. And until they do….what?”

@AmaryllisNightAndDay I agree with you the pills by post is the change that has led to seeing more of these cases. I’m not convinced women are being criminalised more all of a sudden, it’s just that until this recent change this was a crime that was suddenly happening more (albeit still rarely) due to being able to get pills by post.

I agree with you I think we need to go back to in-person appointments for these. No way most of these women would have got them if that had been the case as they’d have been generally visibly pregnant at a glance and would I think have had a scan to confirm gestation first etc.

Although the arguments from these poll providers has been that it improves access to people who might struggle to make an appointment to come and see someone face to face for them etc. And arguably enables women to get their hands on them more quickly at an earlier stage of pregnancy. I think before the law changed in N Ireland just prepandemic there had been a lot of pressure for pills by post to be accessible by women living there, so it may have happened at some stage even without the pandemic and lockdowns though I’m sure not as quickly. I think the pros are outweighed by the cons of such cases happening.

Thank you @Britneyfan It's a complicated balance. And to be fair to Dr Stock I also get frustrated by politicians who vote for something based on how good it sounds.

It’s possible this will result in the pills being more tightly controlled- collected in person, for example.

This law is not saying abortion at 36 weeks is ‘a good thing’. So that’s a bit of hyperbole.

Perhaps a woman should be able to go to her dr saying she is desperate, she needs the baby out at 36/34/32 weeks, and get help.

@Slothtoes I’m pretty sure this now means N Ireland is out of step again actually, don’t think they have totally decriminalised late stage terminations there in the way this amendment does for England and Wales. Really all termination legislation in this day and age should be national and consistent throughout the UK I think!