Ripples from the US decision in Roe v Wade can already be seen across the pond, with campaigners pointing out that the UK’s abortion laws are not as watertight as many assume they are.
On June 24, the US Supreme Court voted to overturn the landmark case that has enshrined abortion as a constitutional right for Americans since 1973. The power to legislate against it has now been returned to individual American states; as a result, at least half of them are likely to restrict access to abortion or ban it altogether.
In Britain, we have seen that things are different and no such rollback on reproductive rights is looming. Following the Supreme Court ruling, protesters in the UK turned their anger towards America, not Westminster. Demonstrators gathered outside the US embassy in London with signs reading “Our Bodies, Our Choices”. Glastonbury was littered with performances opposing the decision, while politicians almost unanimously condemned a decision that Prime Minister Boris Johnson described as a “big step backwards”.
Yet British campaigners say a woman’s right to choose is much more fragile than it appears in modern Britain. Technically, abortion is still a criminal offense in England, Wales and Scotland. Most British women have access to an abortion by 24 weeks, although the majority are carried out much earlier (89 per cent of abortions were carried out at less than ten weeks’ gestation in 2021).
It may come as a surprise that abortion is technically illegal in a country where women have free access to it. Catherine O’Brien of the British Pregnancy Advice Service (Bpas) explains: “Abortion remains illegal in England, Wales and Scotland under a piece of legislation passed in 1861 called the Offenses Against the Person Act. The 1967 Abortion Act did not decriminalize abortion, nor did it repeal that legislation – what it did was to provide legal protection for women and doctors who performed abortions as long as they met the terms of the law.
Two doctors must sign off on the procedure to say that continuing the pregnancy is potentially more harmful than terminating it, based on the physical or mental health of the mother, the child if born, or existing children.
“As it stands, abortion is still illegal under a law that was passed the same year the American Civil War began, long before women had the right to vote,” added Dr Jonathan Lord, consultant gynecologist and spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (RCOG). “What happened in America is chilling because it shows that even reproductive rights enshrined in the constitution can be taken away after 50 years.”
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