'Truly terrible': Faith and pro-life leaders denounce UK's abortion decriminalization

The United Kingdom (UK) has just voted to allow what prominent churchmen and pro-life advocates are denouncing as the “most extreme” abortion bill in its history.

Key Takeaways:

• Faith leaders and pro-life leaders point out that the decriminalization of self-managed abortion up to birth in the UK will put not just preborn children in danger, but women as well.

• They also say it will make coercion by abusers easier.

• The change to the Crime and Policing bill allowing this extreme measure was made after just 46 minutes of debate in the House of Commons, and the House of Lords voted down two commonsense amendments in an attempt to halt it.

The Details:

Last week, Peers in the House of Lords voted for a contentious bill that eradicates all criminal penalties for women who choose to use self-managed abortion to end the lives of their unborn children for any reason, at any stage, even up to birth.

On March 18, members of the House of Lords supported the inclusion of Clause 208 in the wider Crime and Policing Bill, effectively decriminalizing women who undergo abortions in all situations, with no gestational limits. Clause 208 declares that “no offense is committed by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy.”

The vote was pushed through rapidly, and was taken with less than an hour of debate beforehand.

Baroness Monckton in the House of Lords put forward an amendment in an attempt to strike out Clause 208, which failed after a vote of 185 to 148. Monckton slammed the bill for being passed in the House of Commons “without any evidence, scrutiny, public consultation or impact assessment.”

She also maintained that the decriminalization of abortion places women at risk “by removing the current legal deterrent against administering an abortion away from a clinical setting right up to birth.”

A separate amendment by Baroness Stroud, meant to restore the requirement for face-to-face medical consultations before home abortions, was likewise voted down, with 191 opposing it and 119 in support.

Monckton and various other Peers alluded to the Covid‑era “pills by post” abortion programs, stating that doing away with face‑to‑face medical assessments risks making it easier to pressure women or hide exploitation, especially in cases of domestic abuse or trafficking.

Commentary:

Before the House of Lords vote, Archbishop John Sherrington of Liverpool, the lead bishop for life issues for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, cautioned that Clause 208 “could lead to the decriminalization of abortion for women, for any reason, up to the point of birth” and reflected “a radical departure from our current law” that erodes “the dignity of the unborn child.”

“The clause is not supported by the British public,” the archbishop penned in a March 16 statement. “Apart from the further threat Clause 208 poses to the lives of unborn babies and the health of their mothers, this change would leave women more susceptible to coercion and abuse.”

Responding to the rejection of the two proposed changes to the law by the House of Lords on March 18, pro-life group Right To Life UK noted: 

The clause would change the law so it would no longer be illegal for women to perform their own abortions for any reason, including sex-selective purposes, and at any point up to and during birth. If this bill becomes law, it will likely lead to a significant increase in the number of women performing late-term abortions at home, endangering the lives of many more women.

In remarks quoted by OSV News, Catherine Robinson, Right to Life UK spokesperson, said: 

“The abortion up to birth clause is one of the most extreme pieces of legislation ever to pass the House of Commons and the House of Lords. This change was only made possible after pro-abortion MPs hijacked a government Bill to rush through this radical and seismic change to our abortion laws after just 46 minutes of backbench debate and a late-night debate in the Lords as the Government sought to rush through the final clauses of its Crime and Policing Bill before the end of the parliamentary session.”

The Director of Advocacy and Policy of pro-life group CARE, Caroline Ansell, lamented:

“By rejecting the opportunity to remove the highly controversial clause allowing women to abort their own babies up to birth without legal consequences, Peers have instead endorsed a dangerous principle which may prove truly terrible in practice with more, not fewer, women taking desperate and risky steps to end late term pregnancy. Tiny lives will be lost before they have begun....

It is tragic that our law will have so little regard for unborn babies and do so little to protect women through pregnancy. I fear future generations will look back on this day and be astonished and appalled by our approach to life at its very beginning.”

The Bottom Line:

Decriminalizing self‑induced abortion to birth will particularly affect women in vulnerable situations, making it more likely that abusive partners, traffickers or family members will coerce women into terminating their pregnancies at home. 

At the same time, the initiative removes what little acknowledgement British law still gives to unborn children at later stages of pregnancy, even when these children can survive outside the womb.

Such an outcome contradicts Britain’s existing neonatal care policies providing extremely premature babies with intensive medical support, while other babies of similar gestational age could be aborted without the law recognizing any offense.