Abortion under attack in the UK

When we said it couldn't happen here, we were wrong

This week, the Criminal Justice Bill will reach report stage in the House of Commons, with the chance for abortion-law amendments to come in front of Parliament. Two of those - tabled by Labour’s Stella Creasy and Diana Johnson respectively - would end the criminalisation of women seeking abortion, and put a stop to the rising number of women facing police investigations for unexplained pregnancy loss. The two amendments differ, but ultimately they seek to reform our outdated abortion laws which have sent women to prison for accessing terminations outside the exemptions of the 1967 Abortion Act.

The other two seek to curtail women’s reproductive rights.

One, tabled by Conservative MP Caroline Ansell, seeks to reduce the upper time limit for abortion from 24 weeks to 22. The second, by Conservative MP Sir Liam Fox, would prevent women being able to opt to end their pregnancy beyond 24 weeks where doctors have diagnosed Down’s syndrome. This would make Down’s syndrome the only condition for which a post 24-week abortion is expressly prohibited.

The two amendments are, say abortion provider BPAS, the “biggest attack on abortion rights in the UK in decades.”

Anti-abortion campaigners justify attempts to reduce the upper-time limit as being about foetal viability. But, BPAS insists, there is no evidence “for reducing the abortion limit to 22 weeks on the basis of babies' survival rate. Lowering the limit will only serve to put pressure on women.” Any decision to cut the upper time limit would be “catastrophic” for women, warned a coalition of more than 100 healthcare professionals in the Telegraph.

The anti-abortion campaign is working hard to squash Creasy’s and Johnson’s amendments, with Society for the Protection of Unborn Children placing ads in Conservative Home urging readers not to “abandon babies” to the “decriminalisation plot”; while the extreme anti-abortion group CBR UK is targeting Creasy’s Walthamstow constituency with graphic imagery flyers. Meanwhile, as I reported for openDemocracy, anti-abortion MPs have been joined by hard-right TV influencers and Christian Nationalist organisations to claim on Twitter that Creasy wants to allow abortion up to birth – known in the US as “partial birth abortion”. There is medically no such thing, although in the US there is now a legal ban on the procedure.

As for Fox’s amendment regarding Down’s Syndrome and abortion bans, his campaign has been supported by the UK leaders of the hard-right campaign group Turning Point UK, as I reported for Byline Times back in 2022. The UK branch of the US Trump-supporting organisation is also behind anti-drag queen protests.

So what is going on here?

The first is that, post-Roe, anti-abortion organisations with US ties have been increasing their influence in the UK, most notably Alliance Defending Freedom and its European branch ADF International. You can read more in my investigation feature for oD, but suffice to say, the organisation has massively increased its spending in the UK. Its communications lead, Lois McLatchie-Miller, joined the Twitter storm against Creasy, appeared on GB News to talk about the amendment (which employs Darren Grimes, who also targeted Creasy with disinformation about her abortion amendment) and spoke on a far-right podcast that has platformed a range of anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-migrant voices.

The second is that, post-Roe, US hard-right and Christian Nationalist organisations have been increasingly embracing – and been embraced by – reactionary members of the Conservative Party. This includes the continuing and growing presence of anti-abortion, hard right Tories attending events such as the National Conservatism Conference, alongside ADF International and other US-linked anti-abortion forces, and CPAC – where Liz Truss, for example, giggled alongside Trump strategist Steve Bannon. And it includes the continued ties between Conservative MPs and the Washington DC think tank the Heritage Foundation, which is behind the anti-rights Project 2025 initiative that aims to ban abortion and restrict LGBTQ+ rights.

The Heritage Foundation regularly hosts hard-right and anti-abortion Conservative MPs including - you guessed it - Liam Fox, as well as Suella Braverman (who also appeared at the NCC), Truss, Priti Patel, and Oliver Dowden, who delivered a bizarre anti-woke speech in 2022.

The advisory board of Project 2025 includes - you guessed it again - Alliance Defending Freedom and Turning Point USA, as well as the ACLJ which has a European and East African arm pushing anti-gender activity.

All this adds up to increased US-linked activity in the UK, and growing alliances between Christian Nationalist, hard-right and anti-abortion organisations and activists with the British Conservative Party.

That’s one part of what is going on.

The other is that we have been seeing a wider attack on human rights in the UK from the right; attacks that - as my book describes - starts with the far-right and becomes mainstreamed into parliamentary politics.

Abortion is the latest frontier in that attack.

We have seen multiple attempts to restrict abortion rights in the past 16 years, since Nadine Dorries’ attempt to reduce the upper-time limit. They include failed attempts to ban abortions for specific foetal anomalies and on sex-selective abortions. We have also seen real progress on abortion access, with decriminalisation in Northern Ireland and the extension of telemedicine for medical terminations.

But none have come at a time where I feel so deeply fearful for the attitudes towards human rights in the UK. Right now, human rights are being degraded on all sides: from shutting down the right to protest, LGBTQ+ rights, and migrant rights. The Conservative Party is seemingly happy to ignore international norms and dictate reality to suit their own bizarre immigration plans (hi, Rwanda!), in order to stoke up division, and to fuel culture wars that position human rights as a battle of identities rather than, you know, universal human rights.

Abortion now risks becoming the latest front in that war.

My other fear is that neither have the previous attacks on abortion rights come at a time when the anti-abortion movement around the world is so emboldened. Dobbs has given them new confidence, new bravado, new determination. They believe that because they won in the US, they can win here.

We cannot let them.

Now, you may think: Sian, get over yourself. What’s wrong with cutting the limit by two weeks, or changing the foetal anomaly rules? Is this that bad?

Well, yes. Because while this is not the same as the abortion bans that have swept across the US since June 2022, these changes are about chipping away at a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, at a time when we should be furthering that right.

First, because cutting upper-time limits is the thin end of the wedge. It opens the door to more restrictions, more reductions, until we are making it more and more difficult for women to get abortion care.

Second, because singling out Down’s Syndrome is to open the door to more restrictions on foetal anomalies – often without doing much concrete to support carers of disabled children, I might add. Banning abortions in cases of foetal anomaly happened in Poland in 2022, making the existing ban even more draconian, and already at least seven women have died after being refused abortion care.

Third, because already, women have been denied abortions as a result of NHS waiting lists, meaning they have gone beyond the upper time limit and forced to continue an unwanted pregnancy. Remember, only a small minority of women have abortions between 12-24 weeks, but may need a later term abortion because of medical or mental health issues, or changing life circumstances, or because they need to pay due to their immigration status and had to save the money. Reducing the time limit means women in often more complex situations will be put under more pressure at a time when they need support.

But also, and perhaps even more importantly, these chip chip chip aways at women’s rights are an attack on the fundamental principle that women have rights over our own bodies. That we have bodily autonomy and that no woman can or should be forced to continue a pregnancy she does not consent to continue. That we have this right, and we should not have to justify or explain that right. These amendments tell us that women’s rights over our own bodies are conditional and they are subordinate to the rights of the foetus. That’s a dangerous path to go down, as all the horrific deaths in countries where abortions are banned tell us.

OK, so now the good news.

There is overwhelming support for abortion rights in the UK. The anti-abortion movement does not have public enthusiasm. There is even excellent and heartening support for abortion rights in the House of Commons, although proportionally, MPs are more against abortion than the population they represent.

But we cannot rest on our laurels. At a time when perhaps we thought these issues were settled, abortion is under attack.

If you support an end to criminalisation, if you believe no woman should go to prison for having an abortion, then please write to your MP to get them to vote for the pro-abortion amendments. You can use the BPAS Time to Act campaign to get your letter out there.

Take action now

Obligatory book plug

This whole post is an obligatory book plug!

But if you are interested in how anti-abortion politics went from the far right to the mainstream, do check it out.

You can buy it direct from the publisher here.

What I’m writing

Since starting at openDemocracy, I’ve had three investigations go live - two on abortion and one on prisons.

A dying baby, a Trump tweet: Inside network setting global right-wing agenda

From America with cash: Right-wing groups want to end abortion in the UK

Dirty, dangerous, and failing: Prison crisis revealed in England and Wales

What I’m reading

I have read so many books since I last sent this newsletter, I can’t tell them all.

Highlights include

Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan

Asylum Road by Olivia Sudjic

Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au

A Flat Place by Noreen Masud

Shadowplay by Tim Marshall

Bad Blood by John Carreyou

Dreamland by Sam Quinones

Scoops by Sam McAlister

Other voices, other rooms by Capote

Light Spent by Lara Pawson

What I’m watching

Again, I can’t remember - I did enjoy the new Feud about Capote and his swans though, and Escaping Twin Flames.

Plus re-watching Seinfeld. Again! I am so predictable!

That’s it for this week! I’ll try not to leave it so long next time…