‘Huge relief’: Women prosecuted for abortions given pardon

Legal changes granting automatic pardons to women convicted of or cautioned for having an illegal abortion have been described as "a huge relief".

Details regarding women who were arrested or subjected to investigation will also be removed from criminal records starting from Monday.

The development comes seven months after MPs approved the proposal, following a landmark Parliament vote in June 2025 to decriminalise women terminating their own pregnancy.

Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, who brought forward the original decriminalisation amendment last year, stated that many women had been "harmed by outdated abortion law".

Implemented under the Crime and Policing Act, police forces and courts are expected to update records automatically, with affected women not required to submit any applications or take action.

The Ministry of Justice has not confirmed the full number of women affected, but Ms Antoniazzi said she expects it to be more than 100, including posthumous pardons.

She told the Press Association: “I am so pleased to see the Government bringing these pardons into effect.

“This will be a huge relief to the over 100 women who were unnecessarily harmed by outdated abortion law, often at the very worst moments of their lives.

“This trauma cannot be erased, but I hope that this offers some alleviation of the pain these women have endured, enabling them to participate fully in society again, living their lives to the full, working the jobs they’ve always wanted to.”

Ms Antoniazzi criticised the old law for having resulted in women being “treated as suspects, dragged from hospital beds to police cells” and that they had been “met with interrogation and suspicion in moments of crisis where they should have been met with care, and dragged into the criminal justice system”.

Their arrests and cautions had been stated on police records, leading to impacts on job prospects and the ability to travel to certain jurisdictions while convictions led to permanent criminal records, she added.

Abortion in England and Wales is legal with an authorised provider up to 24 weeks, with very limited circumstances allowing one after this time, such as when the mother’s life is at risk or the child would be born with a severe disability.

It is also legal to take prescribed medication at home if a woman is less than 10 weeks pregnant.

But since the Crime and Policing Act came into force in April, it has no longer been a criminal offence for a pregnant woman to terminate her own pregnancy at any stage.

Amid some opposition to that change, Ms Antoniazzi assured her colleagues as the legislation moved through Parliament that the current 24-week limit would remain, abortions would still require the approval and signatures of two doctors, and that healthcare professionals “acting outside the law and abusive partners using violence or poisoning to end a pregnancy would still be criminalised”.

Efforts to change the law to protect women from prosecution followed repeated calls to repeal sections of the 19th century law – the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act – after abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in 2019.

Last year Nicola Packer was cleared by a jury after taking medication at home during a coronavirus lockdown in 2020 when she was around 26 weeks pregnant, having told her trial she did not realise she had been pregnant for more than the legal limit of 10 weeks.

Following the court case, her friend said she had been “persecuted” for a “tragic accident”, while the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) claimed the trial showed “just how outdated and harmful” current abortion law was at the time, and backed calls for reform.

Meanwhile, the case of Carla Foster, jailed in 2023 for illegally obtaining abortion tablets to end her pregnancy when she was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant, eventually saw her sentence reduced by the Court of Appeal and suspended, with senior judges saying that sending women to prison for abortion-related offences is “unlikely” to be a “just outcome”.

Minister for victims and tackling violence against women and girls, Alex Davies-Jones, said pardoning women for abortion offences related to their own pregnancy “has been a priority and I’m pleased to be able to commence the change that Parliament voted for”.

RCOG president, Dr Alison Wright, said the pardons “recognise the injustice of historical convictions and mean women no longer have to live with the consequences of a criminal record for something that should never have been treated as a crime”.

Dr Jonathan Lord, consultant gynaecologist and co-chair of the college’s abortion taskforce, deemed it “an historic day”.

He added: “For the first time since the 13th century, women who have been convicted following a pregnancy loss for an alleged abortion will no longer have to carry the consequences of a criminal record.”

Louise McCudden, head of external relations and advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices UK, described this as a “landmark moment for reproductive justice”.

She said: “This is a vindication for the women who have been prosecuted and for everyone who fought alongside them for justice.

“There has been tremendous progress on abortion rights and gender equality.

“These reforms to our Victorian laws in England and Wales and the pardoning of women prosecuted will send a powerful message that the UK is a pro-choice country and our Parliament reflects that.”

Heidi Stewart, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas), said: “While no pardon can undo the distress and trauma these women have experienced, this historic change in the law recognises the profound harm caused by their criminalisation and represents a meaningful step towards justice.”