What are the abortion laws in UK and the punishments for breaking them?

There are calls to overhaul the “out-of-date” law used to jail a woman who illegally obtained abortion tablets to end her pregnancy during lockdown.

The mother-of-three was sentenced at Stoke Crown Court on Monday for carrying out an abortion of her baby after the legal limit under a law that dates back to 1861.

The 44-year-old obtained the at-home pills by saying she was under 10 weeks’ pregnant.

Here, Sky News looks at the 162-year-old abortion law still being used in the UK, the amendments that have been made since then and the reforms that campaigners want to see.

What are the abortion laws in the UK?

The foundation of the UK’s abortion laws lies in the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act.

This criminalised all abortions. It stated that anybody who provided or used a poison or instrument to end a pregnancy “shall be guilty of a misdemeanour” and, if convicted, could be imprisoned.

The only exception to this was to save the life of the mother, a caveat introduced in 1929.

In 1938, a doctor was arrested after performing an abortion on a 14-year-old girl who had been raped by five soldiers. He argued the termination was necessary because of the risks to her physical and mental health.

The case prompted a revision of the law, allowing doctors to perform abortions if they believed pregnancy would “make the woman a physical or mental wreck”.

This laid the foundation for the major overhaul to abortion laws in 1967.

What changes were introduced in 1967?

The 1967 Abortion Act legalised abortions with an authorised provider – but it was an amendment to the 1861 act, which was never repealed.

This means the deliberate ending of a pregnancy remained illegal unless certain conditions were met.

The law is framed in a way that means abortion is not a right. Instead, it gives an exemption from prosecution in certain circumstances – when two doctors agree it would be risky for the mental or physical health of the woman.

This is more limited than many other European countries, which allow abortions “on demand”.

The Abortion Act originally allowed terminations up to 28 weeks, but this was lowered to 24 weeks in 1991.

There are very limited circumstances that allow an abortion after 24 weeks, for example if the mother’s life is at risk or the child would be born with a severe disability.

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Changes to at-home abortion rules

Under the Abortion Act, terminations must be carried out at a hospital or licensed clinic.

When the COVID pandemic struck in 2020, at-home abortion pills were made available by post for people seeking an abortion in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.

Before then, women were required to attend a clinic in person to access abortion pills.

MPs voted to continue to allow women to access abortion care at home and the measure was made permanent in August 2020.

What is the punishment for breaking the abortion law?

Crimes under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act carry a maximum life sentence.

Although prosecutions are rare, in the 10 years to April 2022, police in England and Wales recorded 67 cases of procuring an illegal abortion, according to data obtained by the Observer under the Freedom of Information Act.

What reform do campaigners want?

Campaigners want abortion decriminalised so it is a healthcare matter, rather than a legal one.

Senior MPs and women’s rights groups were among those calling for urgent change in the wake of the recent prosecution.

Caroline Nokes, the Conservative who chairs the Commons Women and Equalities Committee, said parliament should look at the issue “in detail”.

“Cases like this, although tragic and fortunately very rare, do throw into stark relief that we are reliant on legislation that is very, very out of date,” she told BBC Radio 4.

Dame Diana Johnson, chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, said both society and healthcare have “moved on” since the existing abortion laws were put in place.

“There’s no other country in the world, as I understand it, that would criminalise a woman in this way,” she said,

“The government should step up and say we should decriminalise, we should reform abortion law, take the criminal law out of this, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have regulation.”

Labour MP Stella Creasy compared the mother’s sentence to the average sentence for a violent offence of 18 months.

She said: “A woman who had an abortion without following correct procedures just got 28 months under an 1868 act – we need urgent reform to make safe access for all women in England, Scotland and Wales a human right.”

Last year, 66 organisations and individuals wrote an open letter to the director of public prosecutions urging them to end the prosecuting of women who end their own pregnancies.

Abortion in Northern Ireland

Abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in 2019.

The change meant women could request an abortion up to 12 weeks without proving a risk to their physical or mental health; up to 24 weeks the law is essentially the same as the rest of the UK.

Before 2019, women in Northern Ireland could only legally access an abortion when the pregnancy would cause a long-term and serious risk to the mother’s physical or mental health.

What has Downing Street said?

Downing Street has said there are no plans to change abortion laws or sentencing guidelines.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “Through the Abortion Act, all women have access to safe abortions on the NHS up to 24 weeks and we have made changes so that now includes taking abortion pills at home.

“We think this approach provides the right balance and… there are no plans to change this.”

The spokesman added: “We recognise that this is a highly emotive issue and obviously we recognise that the strength of feeling on all sides.”

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