Tonia Antoniazzi

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I pay tribute to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for opening this very important petitions debate. I thank the petitioner, Gemma, and everyone who signed the petition. It is a real privilege to speak in this timely debate. Abortion remains a criminal offence in England and Wales under a law written in 1861. That means that in those two jurisdictions, still, in 2025, women can be criminally prosecuted and imprisoned for ending their own pregnancies. That is not a theoretical consequence of a law passed before women even had the right to vote; it is happening now at an increasing rate. Since 2020, around 100 women have been criminally investigated, six have faced court and one has been sent to prison on suspicion of illegal abortion offences. Those investigations are dehumanising and prolonged, and the women forced to endure them are often extraordinarily vulnerable: victims of domestic abuse and violence, human trafficking and sexual exploitation, girls under the age of 18, and many women who have suffered miscarriage, stillbirth or who have given birth prematurely. They are victims but they are treated as suspects and subjected to invasive investigations that inflict profound long-term harm. Because of this law, women are being dragged through police cells after having given birth and forced to wait up to six years for a court date. Mothers are being torn from their existing children and new babies—sometimes for years. Some are still fighting to get them back. Women have received death threats. They have self-harmed, been denied access to the mental and physical health care they require following their trauma and been forced to spend every single penny that they and their families have earned just to defend themselves. Just what public interest is that serving? It is not justice; it is cruelty. Yet now, under new guidance from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, officers are being told that they can seize women’s phones and search their messages, internet history and even health apps if they are suspected of ending a pregnancy outside of the law. It is state-sanctioned surveillance, and victims are being treated like criminals. That is why the law has to change. I have tabled new clause 1 to the Crime and Policing Bill to put an end to the prosecution of women for ending their own pregnancies. It is backed by 115 cross-party MPs and 50 sector organisations. My new clause simply disapplies the criminal law related to abortion from women acting in relation to their own pregnancy. Despite what those on the opposing side scaremonger, my new clause is narrow and targeted. It changes absolutely nothing about the provision of abortion services and the conditions laid out in the Abortion Act 1967, including the time limit and the need to meet certain criteria and to obtain the approval and signatures of two doctors. It maintains existing punishments for both medical professionals and violent partners who end a pregnancy outside of the law. Instead, new clause 1 simply removes the threat of criminal liability from women who end their own pregnancies, enabling them to get the care and support that they need. As has been mentioned, it would bring us into line with Northern Ireland, Ireland, France, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The reality is that no woman wakes up 24 weeks pregnant or more and suddenly decides to end their own pregnancy outside a hospital or clinic. But some women, in desperate circumstances, make choices that many of us would struggle to understand. What they need is compassion and care, not the threat of criminal prosecution. As hon. Members will be aware, my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) has tabled new clause 20 to the Crime and Policing Bill in this regard. She and I share the same interests and overarching objective—to remove women from the criminal law related to abortion—but her new clause is markedly broader in terms of the scope of change proposed to the long-standing settlement that provides for abortion services. This framework is complex. Hard-won battles have cemented women’s access to abortion in this country into primary legislation. Parliament has, up to now, remained resistant to changes that constitute a rollback. I have concerns about overturning that entire framework at the current time and replacing it with a mechanism that would leave power in the hands of a single Minister. Does the Minister agree that such powers would mark a sea change in the long-standing, underlying framework that provides for abortion in England and Wales? The Abortion Act 1967 is also related to the underlying criminal law on abortion in England and Wales. Repealing that law in its entirety would bring the continued practical operation and enforcement of the Act into question. Will the Minister comment on the likelihood of that leaving a regulatory gap? We are lucky enough to live somewhere where abortion is accessible to the vast majority of women—and rightly so. We must ensure that we preserve that, particularly given the current political climate in the world. I would also expect any proposed changes on this subject to be consulted on and to include input from the sector, the essential work of which is underpinned by the current settlement. I am staunchly pro-choice, and as much as I believe that future reforms on abortion provision are needed, we must not lose sight of the current moral imperative and its urgency: vulnerable women being dragged from hospital bed to police cell on suspicion of ending their own pregnancies. That can be stopped by disapplying the criminal law on abortion in relation to women. New clause 1 has the explicit backing of every single organisation that represents abortion providers in England and Wales. It is also supported by the Royal Colleges of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Midwives, General Practitioners, Psychiatrists, and Nursing. Countless groups on violence against women and girls, including the End Violence Against Women Coalition, Refuge, Southall Black Sisters, Rape Crisis England & Wales, Imkaan, and the Centre for Women’s Justice, are also behind new clause 1. It is also supported by today’s petitioner—thank you, Gemma. The public supports this change. This petition, signed by more than 103,000 people, is a stark reinforcement of that fact. It is time to ensure that those desperate women who are failed by the law or access to abortion can safely turn to healthcare in their time of need—often the worst moments of their lives—without fear of being turned in to the police by their own doctors. Those women deserve the care and compassion that they need. We have spoken today of the case of Nicola Packer. There must be no more Nicola Packers.