Peers push to pardon women criminalised under abortion laws

Peers are set to debate abortion law changes that would pardon women in England and Wales already criminalised and halt active police investigations.

Last summer, MPs voted to end the criminalisation of women who terminate pregnancies outside the legal framework through a new clause in the crime and policing bill.

The House of Lords will consider its own series of amendments to the legislation on Wednesday, including two that would end active police investigations into suspected illegal abortions and pardon women who have already been criminalised.

Liberal Democrat peer Elizabeth Barker, who has put forward one of the amendments, said: “When I heard how the system has treated these women and girls when they are at their most vulnerable, and how they may have to explain this every time their [disclosure and barring service] check gets renewed, it was clear this cruelty had to be stopped.”

“Although there are far fewer who have been convicted, that conviction is a life sentence, it prevents them getting jobs, and even when renewing their car insurance every year they’ll have to explain they have a lifelong criminal record.”

Becca was 19 and working as a healthcare assistant in a hospital in the north of England when she realised she was pregnant.

She had had no signs of pregnancy over the prior months and assumed she had only just conceived.

She went to a clinic and saw a doctor who gave her abortion pills, but when she did not experience the bleeding she had been warned to expect, she called NHS 111 and was advised to go to A&E.

A scan then showed she was six months pregnant, and Becca gave birth to her son Harry within an hour.

Because Harry was born at 28 weeks, meaning very prematurely, he was moved to a hospital better equipped to care for premature babies, and then to a third hospital.

“And that is the hospital that ended up calling the police on us,” Becca said.

A few weeks after Harry was born, police arrived at Becca’s home and arrested her for attempted child destruction. Her partner was arrested at the hospital where he had been visiting their son.

Their electronic devices were confiscated. Social services told the couple they were not allowed any unsupervised contact with their son for several months, and it was not until 15 months later that the police investigation was dropped.

Because abortion offences are classed as violent crimes, the fact of an arrest can still be disclosed on a disclosure and barring service check even without a conviction. A disclosure and barring service check is a background check often used by employers.

Becca, now 21, said: “You don’t want to have to tell such a traumatic event to a random stranger who’s going to be your boss.”

If the law was changed so that her arrest records could be erased, she said: “I think it would just be almost like a release from it.

“We could just be able to live a normal life, because it’s having an impact on job applications and plans for the future.”

Her mother, Anne, said: “She’s thinking of training to be a nurse or a midwife, and all of that, I mean it’s possible now, but it’s going to be awkward because she’s going to have to declare it. If that’s gone, she can just carry on just like any 21-year-old making plans.”

Nikki Packer, who was last year cleared of carrying out an illegal abortion, said: “The lasting effects on myself and other women placed under investigation aren’t something I can simply ‘get over’. The current law is ancient, it’s time it reflects modern society.”

Dr Alison Wright, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said the college was calling on peers to follow the House of Commons and support clause 208, “ensuring that women are no longer at risk of investigation or prosecution for decisions about their own healthcare”.

She added: “It is also vital that the harm already caused is addressed.

“That is why we are also urging peers to support amendment 426B, which would pardon women previously prosecuted under outdated and unjust abortion laws.

“Women who have faced investigation or conviction should not have to continue living with the consequences of this archaic legislation.”