Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Lawlor Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, to the Front Bench to supplement the efforts of the indefatigable Home Office team on the Front Bench in the Lords.

I wish to speak about Clause 191, which decriminalises abortions for women ending their pregnancy at any stage to birth. The clause does not change the existing time limit of 24 weeks, after which an abortion will be a criminal offence, except under special circumstances, for medical professionals and for those who provide an abortion or assist a woman to procure one for herself. What will change is that the woman herself, who takes the steps to end her pregnancy at any stage up to birth, will not face criminal charges.

I am against such a change on three grounds—one procedural and two substantive. First, a private Member’s conscience amendment has been used to amend a government Bill, bringing the weight of the Executive to a matter of conscience. Moreover, by this procedure, a matter of great significance may be allowed to slip through, tagged on to the Crime and Policing Bill, avoiding the full national and parliamentary scrutiny that such major changes in a law require.

Secondly, it is selective in the application of the law in a way that goes against the very principle of law. It is bad in principle and practice to count some action as a crime for some people but not for others. In Clause 191, it is accepted that aborting a baby over 24 weeks old is normally a crime and that those involved should be punished, except for one—the pregnant woman who is the instigator of the action. Part of the very principle of what it is to be a law is that it is applied universally. There can be special factors, such as coercion, which relieve someone of criminal responsibility in particular circumstances, but not a blanket exception.

Moreover, there could be no greater denigration of pregnant women, and indeed all women, than to deny them the most basic right of all: to be judged morally and, when they have committed a crime, judged criminally. Abortion over 28 weeks is accepted as a crime by all. To say that pregnant women can commit it so long as they do so against their own children or own child—but nevertheless they are not criminals—is to treat them as less than fully human adults.