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 didnt see that, thank you. But 55% is pretty middling. And of course there hasn't been debate - it has come from next to nowhere. So people generally have not heard arguments to help them decide.

55% is a majority (coughBrexit!).

Only 25% said they thought the law should remain unchanged.

I am not sure how else public opinion could have been gauged on this, other than via polls.

I consider myself to be pro choice, however this legislation troubles me. I can't believe it was just waved through. Where is the cut off? If someone self aborts at 37 weeks at home and the baby is born alive and subsequently dies, is that still considered an abortion and OK, or is it infanticide?

I think this about a balance of rights (again).

Women have rights to bodily autonomy.

A late term gestating baby has a potential life outside it's mother. They are also capable of feeling pain and suffering.

It is best for society that all children are born to families who want them and have prepared to care for them. Harm can occur to mother and child when this is not the case.

Not every woman is living a calm life making rational decisions about their pregnancy - some are in coercive and/or violent relationships or are in the grip of addictions, mental health illness or have been trafficked into the country and their decisions are taken by others Are these women capable of making informed consent decisions about late term abortions? Is it possible that they could be forced into this decision?

I am glad that there is still prosecution for those 'aiding' women in late term abortions - I think this may help in some situations described above.

I don't think jailing women for abusing abortion pills is useful, but I do think the harm they cause to the baby inside them needs to be acknowledge by society and not just brushed aside. I think there needs to be consequences for them - even if it's just reduced access to the pills another time.

Well, in this scenario if the baby was born alive and the mother didn't get medical help for it causing it to die, that would be manslaughter, maybe?

If the baby wasn't born alive, the mother could still be prosecuted if she lied to get abortion pills.

Well, I have a lot of respect for her but often disagree with her. As I do here. Plus, I get very irritated when people set up a hypothetical argument with a strawman, then pat themselves on the back for winning it.

I've read https://unherd.com/2023/06/the-perils-of-reproductive-extremism/ . She seems to be arguing that fathers should have a say in abortion. I can see the emotional logic behind that, but there's an obvious danger of putting men in a position where they could force a woman to carry a child to term - or conversely, to abort the child.

By that point it's called an induction of labour. If the mother then does something to harm the baby, it's infanticide/murder.

I'm not sure that is correct. The new legislation bars women in England and Wales from ever being investigated, arrested, prosecuted or imprisoned for terminating their own pregnancies — no matter what term or trimester they're in.

@StandFirm you may be right on that, I’m genuinely not sure of the previous or changed legalities of this since the amendment. But I’m more interested in what happens if eg a baby is born at let’s say 24 or 26 weeks and is likely not going to survive very long without modern medical input ie being in an incubator in a neonatal unit. And the mother does not do anything to actively hasten the baby’s death but also doesn’t call 999 for an ambulance to take the baby to hospital and so it then dies. Would that be infanticide? Or simply the expected consequences of a late term abortion done at home with no medical input and now decriminalised? And thus something that we will see happening with no legal consequences?

AFAIK you are right, that situation would be treated as infanticide, as the infanticide act hasn't changed.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/1-2/36/section/1

I think this is the kind of confusion that needs resolving before passing legislation

I'm interested in this too. Reading Stock's Unherd article I don't think she's understood that abortion pills bring on labour rather than kill the baby - so if you take an abortion pill at 36 weeks, say, you will probably end up with a live baby. So I don't think we're going to see a spate of very late terminations.

But what we might see is a spate of women using the pills to bring on labour at about 24 or 28 weeks, and then giving birth to a live, very premature baby, with all that entails - a baby that dies soon after birth, or has severe developmental injuries because it wasn't taken to special care on time. I think the onus here is on abortion clinics not to send out abortion pills by post unless they are absolutely sure that the woman is in the early stages of pregnancy. Realistically, I don't see how you can be sure unless you bring the woman in for a scan.

Is that the case with the pills people were buying online? I understand that the authorised pill for abortion in the UK acts like that, but could people get hold of different pills that do different things?

Does anyone know why a previous amendment, to stop pills by post, was rejected?

I think this is a really excellent example of how we don't have to agree with everyone on every single issue. This is how adult debate and decision-making works. I agree 100% with KS on trans issues, I disagree with her 95% on abortion issues. Its excellent.

Very well put and entirely agree. I would describe myself as pro-choice but I would never have an abortion myself. I don't think my own moral qualms should prevent others from getting them. However, I do think this whole issue could have been out to bed by preventing women from getting hold of abortion pills by post. It should never have happened and it has had unintended consequences. I think this new legislation may also have unintended consequences, including a possible increase in attempted late at-home abortions by desperate women or their ruthless partners, for whom there is now no deterrent. Far from providing safe, medically controlled abortion, this has simply made late term abortion legal for women but not for those who can safely provide it.

I have just read that in some cases of a late term medical termination the baby may be born live then die. In such cases the birth and death must registered. Why in such cases would that not have been infanticide?
This amendment to law seems woolly as far as how it aligns with other laws.

What would the mother be prosecuted for if she lied to get the pills?

I know somebody earlier suggested that it would be an offence under the 2006 Fraud Act, but I don't understand what the offence would be.

I thought that to be guilty of fraud you had to make a "gain" in terms of money or property. What is the money or property gain here?

Is there some other statutory offence?

But if the mother has only brought about an abortion by taking whatever medication it is and the baby is born alive, and then dies, why would the mother necessarily be guilty of infanticide? Surely that would only be the case if the mother either took deliberate steps to harm the baby after birth or if she omitted to call medical assistance(?)

My undestanding is that unless the death is caused by "the wilful act or omission of the mother" then it isn't infanticide.

So as long as the mother either seeks medical attention or she doesn't do anything deliberately to kill the live baby, it isn't infanticide.

But I'm not a lawyer

Can anybody clarify something for me?

Several posters have approached this issue by looking at the "rights" of the mother versus the "rights" of the unborn child.

Some have made the point that prior to birth the unborn child has no "rights" in the strictly legal sense and have compared this to the mother's "right" to bodily autonomy and the "right" to choose.

However it isn't clear to me that a woman does have those "rights" in the legal sense.

Prior to this discussion I had been under the impression that there was a legal right to abortion on demand up to 24 weeks, but having read some of the articles linked to I'm no longer sure.

Isn't it the case that there is only a right to choose an abortion up to 24 weeks if certain conditions are met? And that part of the problem is that the medical profession have become increasingly lax in deciding whether those conditions have been met, thus giving the impression that there is a right to abortion on demand?

FWIW I have previously been pro-choice but I'm concerned that this amendment is providing the wrong solution to the problem by decriminalising women who carry out a late self-abortion. The problem is the unregulated avaialability of these pills online

There has never been a right to abortion on demand and there still isn’t.
Criminalising self induced abortion doesn’t stop it happening, and decriminalising it won’t increase the likelihood of it happening. It just means that traumatised women won’t spent years being re traumatised by the criminal justice system.

Why do you believe that? It's very simplistic and naive. People are much more complicated than that, their situations are more complicated, and there are absolutely bad actors who will apply pressure where it suits them as well.

Besides that, do we really want to work on the principle that there is no need to criminalise rare crimes?

I also wonder, in the case of the baby being born alive, and surviving, there is significant likelihood of medical consequences for the child and later adult.

Could that child or adult make a civil suit against the mother for her actions in harming the child? Or for costs associated? And what would insurance companies make of that possibility, if they are providing care for said child?

Would the child be allowed to be raised by the mother?

I just don't see how you can wave away all the implications of this being a viable person.