MPs who changed law to decriminalise women who had late abortions had death threats

Martin Shipton

The Welsh Labour MP behind a controversial amendment to abortion law has spoken of the death threats received by proponents of the change that decriminalises women who have late abortions.

Gower MP Tonia Antoniazzi told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on the eve of the Crime and Policing Bill getting Royal Assent: “There has been a backlash. There have been death threats, things like that have to be passed on to the police. I’ve had people outside my office with photos of myself and of foetuses. Luckily the police have been very supportive. There is backlash and it’s not very pleasant, but we’ve done the right thing. We’ve changed the law and we are supporting women.”

Ms Antoniazzi’s amendment removes criminal liability for women who end their own pregnancies and pardons those who have been convicted of illegal abortions.

She explained that while women were decriminalised, doctors who perform late abortions beyond 24 weeks of pregnancy when, for example, the woman’s life is not at risk remain criminally liable, as do coercive partners who force women to have abortions.

Ms Antoniazzi told the programme: “The change for women is huge because we’ve seen about 100 cases in the last few years of women being picked up by the criminal system and questioned about the termination of their pregnancy. It pulls the current law into line with the law in 50 other countries and Northern Ireland, where women are not criminalised ending a pregnancy.”

She said she had met Nicola Packer, who last year was acquitted of having an illegal abortion. Ms Antoniazzi said: “Her story was that she had accessed telemedicine. She hadn’t known how far gone she was. It was during Covid and she went to the hospital having given birth to the foetus and they reported her to the police. Then she was taken into custody and was treated like a criminal. That case went on for nearly five years. It went to the Crown Court and she was put under huge scrutiny, which was completely unnecessary and at a great cost to her wellbeing and her pocket, because it cost a lot of money.

“It was just heartbreaking to see, having experienced termination myself and knowing how vulnerable you feel and how lonely you feel to have had such huge scrutiny and to be put in that position where her browsing history was being read out, her sex life was being discussed, when that’s nobody’s business. I feel that to see somebody being put in that position and then for the case to be thrown out of court, it really does show that it was a waste of time, a waste to the public purse. It’s not in the interests of anybody, particularly vulnerable women, to be put in that situation.”

Catholic

Discussing her own circumstances, Ms Antoniazzi said: “I’d been brought up a Catholic, with a Catholic education. I was a student at the time and I didn’t know where to turn. I couldn’t go to my parents – I didn’t have that kind of ability to be able to discuss it.

“It was actually my older brother at the time who was very supportive and his wife – and they helped me again when I had another unwanted pregnancy when I was a mum. And I had to juggle that between work. It was over the Christmas period, I had to wait to access the pills and have an appointment. It took so long and it was just so awful.

“I felt so strongly that women were being treated and controlled by a legal system that was making it more unsafe for them, because they had that fear that if they went to the hospital or accessed any medication, they may be criminalised. What this law does is very simple: it decriminalises the woman. It doesn’t change the terms of the Abortion Act.”