The Labour Government has admitted that it is no longer a criminal offence for a woman to intentionally deceive a doctor about the gestation of her baby in order to receive abortion pills by post beyond the legal time limit in England and Wales, at any stage of pregnancy, right up to birth.
The Government has published an Equalities Impact Assessment on the ‘abortion up to birth clause‘ in the Crime and Policing Act 2026, which makes it no longer illegal for women to perform their own abortions for any reason, including sex-selective purposes, and at any point up to and during birth.
The shocking Assessment also reveals that it would no longer be a criminal offence for a woman at full term to lie to an abortion provider about her unborn baby’s age to obtain abortion pills to end the life of her fully formed unborn baby.
It states that a woman could “deceive a registered medical practitioner about the gestation of her pregnancy in order to procure an abortion by pills via pills by post beyond the 10-week time limit” without the possibility of a criminal conviction for doing so.
Through the passing of this law, women who have previously been convicted or cautioned for criminal offences related to abortion in regard to their own pregnancies will be pardoned, and relevant records are to be deleted. The Government has stated that it does not know how many arrests or investigations this will impact, as data is not available relating to this. This means that Parliament has legislated for a potentially widespread deletion of records, the extent and scope of which the Government cannot quantify.
