Abortion in the United Kingdom

Abortion in the United Kingdom is regulated under the terms of the Abortion Act 1967 in Great Britain and the Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No.2) Regulations 2020 in Northern Ireland. Across the United Kingdom, abortion is permitted on the grounds of:

risk to the life of the pregnant woman;
preventing grave permanent injury to her physical or mental health;
risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family (up to a term limit of 24 weeks of gestation); or
substantial risk that, if the child were born, they would "suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped".

The third ground is typically interpreted liberally with regards to mental health to create a de facto elective abortion service; 98% of the approximately quarter-million abortions performed each year in Great Britain are done so for that reason. In Northern Ireland since 2020, abortion is also permitted within the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy for any reason.

Under the UK's devolution settlements, abortion policy is devolved to the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly, but not to the Welsh Parliament (Senedd). Abortion was previously highly restricted in Northern Ireland although it was permitted in limited cases. In 2019, during a time when the Assembly was not operating, the UK Parliament repealed most restrictions on abortion in Northern Ireland; the current Regulations were subsequently introduced by Parliament in 2020.

Abortions which are carried out for grounds outside those permitted in law (e.g. in most cases after the 24-week term limit, or where appropriate consent has not been given) continue to be unlawful in each jurisdiction of the UK – under the Offences against the Person Act 1861 in England and Wales, Scottish common law and the Northern Ireland Regulations. The Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 and the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1945 also outlaw child destruction in cases outside the grounds permitted in abortion law. After several high-profile and controversial prosecutions of women in the 2020s, a current bill progressing through Parliament will also decriminalise a woman procuring her own abortion in England and Wales.

History

Debates and practices relating to abortion, pregnancy and the beginning of human life are recorded in Roman medical literature which would have been become available in Britain from the 1st century AD onwards. The medical writer Soranus of Ephesus, for example, wrote in the early 2nd century:

Similar issues would also have been discussed in Celtic culture, although written Celtic texts were only available from around the 4th century. An early Christian understanding of preventing abortion and infanticide, as outlined in the 1st-century Didache and similar writings, would have been known in the early British Church which experienced more freedom and influence following Constantine's Edict of Milan in AD 313, and also in the early Irish Church after it was founded by Patrick around AD 432.

Alongside this cultural change in Roman society, a more significant sense of value was associated with the life (and death) of infant and neo-natal children. Several studies of the burials of children who died before or close to the time of birth in Roman Britain have been made, and the presence of neo-natal burials given the same burial rites as adults is "a pointer to identification of the cemetery as Christian" as such burials were rare before the 4th century.

Care for abandoned or unwanted children, such as kinship care within families and friendship circles, and the adoption and fostering of alumni, were also well-established in Roman society. In the early Middle Ages, in Britain and other regions of Northern Europe, parents who did not want to raise their children often gave them to monasteries along with a small fee – a practice known as oblation.

Abortion was mainly dealt with by the ecclesiastical courts until their abolition during the Reformation. These cases were generally assigned to the ecclesiastical courts due to problems of evidence; the courts had wider evidential rules and more discretion regarding sentencing. A number of cases such as the Twinslayers Case, in England in 1327, were heard in the secular courts as part of the common law. Later, under Scottish common law, abortion was defined as a criminal offence unless performed for "reputable medical reasons", a definition which could be interpreted as sufficiently broad as to essentially preclude prosecution.

Early statute and modern case law

The legality of abortion, and the value of the lives of pregnant women and unborn children, in common law was discussed by several English jurists from the Middle Ages onwards, including Henry Bracton, William Stanford, Edward Coke and William Blackstone. For example, Blackstone wrote in his 1765 Commentaries on the Laws of England:

Shortly after his appointment as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough, codified abortion as an offence in statute law, in England and Wales and Ireland, through the Malicious Shooting or Stabbing Act 1803, which became known as Lord Ellenborough's Act. This legislation and the subsequent acts in the 19th century did not apply to Scotland due to its separate legal system based on common law.

The 1803 Act introduced capital punishment for wilfully, maliciously, and unlawfully administering "any deadly poison, or other noxious and destructive substance or thing, with intent[...] to cause and procure the miscarriage of any woman, then being quick with child" (section 1) and penalties, at the discretion of the court, up to and including penal transportation for using means to "cause the miscarriage of any woman not being, or not being proved to be, quick with child" (section 2).

The offences created by the 1803 Act were consolidated in the first Offences Against the Person Act, introduced by Robert Peel and enacted for England in 1828, which outlined the same offences and punishments (section 13). The same consolidation took place in Irish law through the Offences Against the Person (Ireland) 1829 (section 16). Both Acts were replaced by the Offences Against the Person Act 1837, which created a single abortion offence without a distinction around a pregnant woman being quick with child or not, and also repealed the death penalty for causing an abortion.

The law was again consolidated through the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which continues to be the main legislation for prosecuting personal injury in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Act created two offences – administering drugs or using instruments to procure abortion (section 58), which replaced the previous legislation from 1839 and allowed for a sentence of life imprisonment; and procuring drugs, or any other means, to cause abortion (section 59) with a potential sentence of three years' imprisonment. The content of the 1861 Act was applied in colonial legislation throughout the British Empire in subsequent years e.g. the Offences Against the Person Act 1866 in New Zealand.

Alongside legislation against abortion, philanthropy encouraged more formal and organised arrangements to care for children born from unwanted pregnancies through the initiatives of social reformers; examples included the orphanage movement (which included the Foundling Hospital, London, in 1739); the pioneering of foster care in Cheshire in 1853 by John Armistead; and the Adoption of Children Act 1926, for England and Wales.

In the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, abortifacents were discreetly advertised for women with unwanted pregnancies who were seeking abortions; there was also a considerable body of folklore about inducing miscarriages. So-called 'backstreet' abortionists using methods such as these were relatively common although their efforts could be fatal. Estimates of the number of illegal abortions varied widely; by one estimate, 100,000 women made efforts to procure an abortion in 1914, usually by drugs.

The criminality of abortion in England and Wales was reaffirmed in 1929, when the Infant Life (Preservation) Act was passed; the Act criminalised the deliberate destruction of a child "capable of being born alive". This was to close a lacuna in the law, identified by the former High Court judge Charles Darling, 1st Baron Darling, which allowed for infants to be killed during birth, thus meaning that the perpetrator could neither be prosecuted for abortion or murder. The Act included the presumption that all children in utero over 28 weeks of gestation were capable of being born alive. Where the life of child in utero was ended before this gestation, evidence was presented and considered to determine whether or not the child was capable of being born alive.

thumb|National Abortion Campaign badges protesting for a women's right to choose to have an abortion, 1970s

The Abortion Law Reform Association, an abortion rights lobbying group, was formed in 1936.

In 1938 the decision in R v. Bourne allowed for further considerations to be taken into account. This case related to an abortion performed on a girl who had been raped, and extended the defence to abortion to include "mental and physical wreck" (Lord Justice McNaghtan). The gynaecologist concerned, Aleck Bourne, later became a founder member of the anti-abortion group the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) in 1966.

In 1939 the Inter-Departmental Committee on Abortion, established by the Home Office and Ministry of Health, recommended a change to abortion laws but the intervention of World War II meant that all plans were shelved. Post-war, after decades of stasis, certain high-profile tragedies, including disability in unborn children caused by the thalidomide drug, and social changes brought the issue of abortion back into the political arena.

Westminster's responsibility for criminal justice and health policy, including around abortion, on the island of Ireland was transferred to the Northern Ireland Parliament (on its formation in 1921) and the Parliament of the Irish Free State (formed in December 1922). Both legislatures took an essentially conservative position, viewing abortion as an offence against the person, or an offence of child destruction, in line with existing legislation in England and Wales.

The 1967 Act

The Abortion Act 1967 sought to clarify the law in Britain. Introduced by David Steel and subject to heated debate, it allowed for legal abortion on a number of grounds, with the added protection of free provision through the National Health Service. The Act was passed on 27 October 1967 and came into effect on 27 April 1968.

Before the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 amended the Act, the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 acted as a buffer to the Abortion Act 1967. This meant that abortions could not be carried out if the child was "capable of being born alive". There was therefore no statutory limit put into the Abortion Act 1967, the limit being that which the courts decided as the time at which a child could be born alive. The C v S case in 1987 confirmed that, at that time, between 19 and 22 weeks a foetus was not capable of being born alive. In the years following a supportive report in favour of the 1967 Act by the Lane Committee in 1974, Members of Parliament introduced four bills which have resulted in substantive debate in the House of Commons (votes are indicated in brackets with ayes followed by noes):

Abortion (Amendment) Bill 1975 – referred to a select committee (260–125);
Abortion (Amendment) Bill 1976 – referred to select committee (313–172);
Abortion (Amendment) Bill 1979 – approved at second stage (242–98) but not enacted;
Abortion (Amendment) Bill 1988 – approved at second stage (296–251) but not enacted;

upright=1.6|thumb|Percentage of births to unmarried women, selected countries, 1980 and 2007

In addition, in 1990, members voted on several proposed amendments to clause 34 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill relating to the termination of pregnancy.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, as enacted, lowered the term limit from 28 to 24 weeks for abortion in cases of 'mental or physical injury' on the ground that medical technology had advanced sufficiently (since 1967) to justify the change but removed restrictions for late abortions in cases of risk to life, grave physical and mental injury to the woman, and the disability in the unborn child (by separating the legal effect of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 from the Abortion Act 1967).

When a further Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (now enacted) was considered by Parliament in 2008, several votes were held on the term limit in Britain, as follows:

Reduction from 24 weeks to 12 weeks (71 ayes, 393 noes);
Reduction from 24 weeks to 16 weeks (84 ayes, 386 noes);
Reduction from 24 weeks to 20 weeks (190 ayes, 331 noes); and
Reduction from 24 weeks to 22 weeks (233 ayes, 304 noes).

Abortion rights groups strongly opposed any attempts to restrict abortion in the 2008 parliamentary debates and votes. A number of abortion rights amendments were proposed by the Labour Party MPs Diane Abbott, Katy Clark and John McDonnell, including NC30 Amendment of the Abortion Act 1967: Application to Northern Ireland. However, it was reported that the Labour government at the time asked MPs not to table these amendments (at least until third reading) and then used parliamentary mechanisms in order to prevent a vote; the government was, at the time, seeking to devolve policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly (which had previously voted to oppose the extension of the 1967 Act).

In 2017 the Reproductive Health (Access to Terminations) Bill was introduced by the Labour MP Diana Johnson with the aim of repealing criminal law on abortion in England and Wales. However, with the call for a general election, the bill fell and no further action was taken.

Amendments to the Abortion Act 1967 have been introduced as conscience vote issues attached to government legislation, the most recent being the legalisation of usage of abortion medication at home in the first ten weeks of pregnancy in the Health and Care Act 2022.

In June 2025, MPs voted 379-137 on a free vote to disapply the criminal law related to abortion from women acting in relation to their own pregnancy as part of report stage of the Crime and Policing Bill. Led by Tonia Antoniazzi MP, the disapplication was brought forward following reports of women in England and Wales being investigated on suspicion of ending their own pregnancy contrary to the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 or Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929.

Proposals since 1967: Northern Ireland

Health, social care and criminal justice policy was devolved to the Northern Ireland Parliament at the time of the Abortion Act 1967's passage at Westminster and the Parliament did not introduce abortion legislation before its suspension in 1972. Statute law was maintained unchanged under Conservative and Labour direct rule administrations and the first Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973-1974 although the law was interpreted through case law in local courts (during the 1990s) to also allow for the grounds of "a risk of real and serious adverse effect on[...] [the] physical or mental health [of the woman] is either long term or permanent". From 1983 onwards, the Constitution of Ireland, covering the Republic with a territorial claim on Northern Ireland until 1998, acknowledged "the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother" and "guaranteed in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right."

The new Northern Ireland Assembly, formed in 1998 following the Good Friday Agreement, voted in June 2000 to oppose the extension of the Abortion Act 1967 to Northern Ireland; the motion was proposed by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and supported by the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) which was, at the time, opposed to abortion but also emphasised an understanding of the social, economic and personal circumstances that gave rise to women choosing the option of an abortion. While health policy had been devolved again to Northern Ireland in December 1999, on the formation of the first Northern Ireland Executive, criminal law (including in relation to abortion) continued to be reserved to Parliament at Westminster until the devolution of policing and justice powers in May 2010.

Political debate around abortion issues was renewed following the opening of a private abortion clinic in Belfast in 2012, the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 in the Republic, and the widespread discussion of a case of fatal foetal abnormality; several debates took place in the Northern Ireland Assembly and its members, in line with party policy and/or personal conscience, decided not to proceed with changes in the law. An amendment by DUP MLA Jim Wells to "restrict lawful abortions to NHS premises, except in cases of urgency when access to NHS premises is not possible and where no fee is paid" was unsuccessful. Later, as Health Minister, Jim Wells opposed abortion in cases of rape as the unborn child would be "punished for what has happened by having their life terminated" although he acknowledged that this would be "a tragic and difficult situation".

Justice Minister David Ford (a member of the Alliance Party) issued a public consultation on amending the criminal law on abortion, which opened in October 2014 and closed in January 2015. However, Ford also wrote that "it is not a debate on the wider issues of abortion law – issues often labelled as 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life'".

In February 2016, during debates on the Justice (No.2) Bill, the Assembly considered and debated an amendment to allow for abortion in cases of pregnancies caused by sexual crime (which was rejected by 64 notes to 32 ayes), and an amendment to allow for abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality (which was rejected by 59 noes to 40 ayes). Sinn Féin and the Green Party voted in favour of both proposals whereas the DUP and the SDLP supported the existing law and members of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and Alliance Party voted on conscience. The Abortion (Fatal Foetal Abnormality) Bill was introduced by David Ford, as a backbench MLA, in December 2016 but fell on the suspension of the Assembly in January 2017.

In the 2017 general election the Labour Party manifesto under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn stated: "Labour will continue to ensure a woman's right to choose a safe, legal abortion – and we will work with the Assembly to extend that right to women in Northern Ireland." The election resulted in a confidence and supply agreement between the Conservative Party and the (DUP). The Conservative government, in June 2017, made a commitment to provide free abortion services in England for women from Northern Ireland due to pressure from Conservative MPs. The Labour Party commitment was, in effect, delivered through private member's amendments enacted in the Northern Ireland Executive (Formation) Act 2019, which repealed the Offences against the Person Act 1861 (sections 58 and 59) in October 2019. The political context was also changed by legal challenges, the repeal of the Eighth Amendment in the Republic in 2018 (supported by Sinn Féin), and the SDLP's decision to consider abortion as a matter of conscience.

Shortly after the introduction of the Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020, the newly restored Northern Ireland Assembly voted – with 46 members in favour and 40 against – to reject "the imposition of abortion legislation that extends to all non-fatal disabilities, including Down's syndrome." Following this vote, the Severe Fetal Impairment Abortion (Amendment) Bill – to remove the grounds for abortion for non-fatal disabilities – was introduced by DUP MLA Paul Givan in February 2021. It reached its consideration stage in December 2021 but MLAs decided – by 45 votes to 43 – against the main proposal in the Bill at that stage.

Great Britain

The main legislation on abortion in England, Scotland and Wales is the Abortion Act 1967, as amended by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. In Great Britain abortion is generally allowed for socio-economic reasons during the first 24 weeks of the pregnancy (a later term limit than most other countries in Europe), and after this point for medical reasons.

England and Wales

The Offences against the Person Act 1861, in England and Wales, prohibits administering drugs or using instruments to procure an abortion and procuring drugs or other items to cause an abortion although subsequent law has provided for a range of grounds which allow abortion to be widely available.

The Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 amended the law in England and Wales to create the offence of child destruction – in cases where any person "who, with intent to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive, by any wilful act causes a child to die before it has an existence independent of its mother". For the purposes of this Act, a child whose mother has been pregnant for 28 weeks is deemed "capable of being born alive". The 1929 Act also provides a defence where it is proved that causing the death of the child was "done in good faith for the purpose only of preserving the life of the mother."

The Abortion Act 1967 originally permitted abortion "by a registered medical practitioner if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion, formed in good faith" on the following grounds:

a risk to the life of the pregnant woman, or of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family; or
a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be "seriously handicapped".

The Act came into operation in 1968, and originally applied a term limit of 28 weeks, in line with the Infant Life Preservation Act. It was subsequently amended by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, to allow for the following grounds:

Ground A – risk to the life of the pregnant woman;
Ground B – to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman;
Ground C – risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman (up to 24 weeks in the pregnancy);
Ground D – risk of injury to the physical or mental health of any existing children of the family of the pregnant woman (up to 24 weeks in the pregnancy);
Ground E – substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped;
Ground F – to save the life of the pregnant woman; or
Ground G – to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman in an emergency.

The amendment therefore allowed for a reduction in the term limit to 24 weeks for Ground C and Ground D with the law changing to reflect advances in technology to enable premature children to be born alive earlier in a pregnancy. However, no term limit was applied to other grounds and abortion was permitted throughout the pregnancy in these cases. The changes took effect in April 1991.

Abortion law was not devolved to the Senedd under Government of Wales Act 1998 and was specifically reserved to the UK Parliament via the Government of Wales Act 2006.

In April 2024 a cross-party group of MPs put forward amendments to the current abortion law in England and Wales to decriminalise abortion up to 24 weeks and ensure that future legislation and guidance protects the right to an abortion. An amendment proposed that abortion be entirely decriminalised for women, whereby the 24-week limit and the requirement for approval by two doctors would remain but if the time limit is not kept to the woman would not be prosecuted, though criminal sanctions would still apply to doctors and midwives involved in abortion beyond 24-weeks. A different amendment proposed decriminalising abortion up to 24-weeks by making it an automatic right for women and allowing it to be carried out and authorised by an approved clinician if a woman requests it.

Scotland

Abortion became an offence in Scotland with the passing of the Abortion Act 1967 and refers to "any rule of law relating to the procurement of abortion". but it was subsequently devolved through the Scotland Act 2016. The Abortion Act 1967 remains in place.

Interpretation

Section 58 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 reads as follows and prohibits administering drugs or using instruments to cause a miscarriage: