Crime and Policing Bill

Sarah Pochin Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

Due to medical advancements, we can save the life of a foetus at 21 weeks, yet we can legally terminate a foetus at 24 weeks. I shall be voting against all the amendments relating to the decriminalisation of abortion. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we should actually be reducing the window in which it is possible to have an abortion, so that the law reflects the realities of modern medicine?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree. Let me move to new clause 20. I am dealing with very narrow legal points, and it might be of interest to the House that the KC concludes that the new clause

“would render the 24-week time limit obsolete in respect of the prosecution of women who undertake termination of pregnancy in typical circumstances.”

He explains that

“the NC20 amendment would repeal the abortion law offences”,

including those relating to a “late abortion”. In other words, new clause 20 would fully repeal all existing laws that prohibit abortion in any circumstances, at any gestation, both in relation to a woman undergoing an abortion, and abortion providers or clinicians performing abortions.

In the second iteration of her new clause, the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) has added a measure that seeks to amend the Abortion Act 1967, to create the impression that a time limit would remain. However, the Abortion Act only provides exemptions against prosecution under the laws that new clause 20 would repeal, so those offences would no longer remain under new clause 20. Since the Abortion Act itself contains no penalties or offences, and neither would the proposed new clause introduce any, adding a mere mention of an ongoing time limit in the Act would be toothless and utterly meaningless under the law. New clause 20 would de facto have the effect of fully decriminalising abortion up to full term for both women and abortion providers.

Hon. Members do not need to take my word for it. It is not often that they will hear me agree with the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the UK’s leading abortion provider, but its assessment of new clause 20 concludes that it would

“largely render the Abortion Act 1967 obsolete”

and

“create a regulatory lacuna around abortion provision and access.”

There is one additional angle that Members need to be aware of. On new clause 20, the legal opinion finds that

“the effect of the amendment is that a woman who terminated her pregnancy solely on the basis that she believed the child to be female would face no criminal sanction in connection with that reason, or at all.”

Similarly, on new clause 1 the opinion confirms that

“it would not be illegal for a woman to carry out her own abortion at home, solely on the basis that the foetus is female.”

These amendments are not pro-woman; they would introduce sex-selective abortion.

Sex-selective abortion is already happening in this country. Back in 2012, a Telegraph investigation found that doctors at UK clinics were agreeing to terminate foetuses because they were either male or female. A BBC investigation in 2018 found that non-invasive prenatal tests were being widely used to determine a baby’s sex early in pregnancy, leading to pressure imposed on some women to have sex-selective abortions. That evidence led the Labour party to urge a ban on such tests being used to determine the sex of babies in the womb. A report by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics similarly found that several websites were privately offering tests to determine the sex of a baby, and the council warned that the increasing prevalence of private testing may be encouraging sex-selective abortions. Passing new clause 1 or new clause 20 would likely make the situation worse. In conclusion, what we are faced with is an extreme set of amendments going way beyond what public dominion demands, and way beyond what is happening in any other country in the world.