How our local MPs voted on measures to decriminalise abortion for women
MPs have voted in favour of measures to decriminalise women terminating their own pregnancies.
The Commons voted 379 to 137, majority 242, to back Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi's amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill. The Gower MP said it will remove the threat of "investigation, arrest, prosecution or imprisonment" of any woman who acts in relation to her own pregnancy.
Ms Antoniazzi told MPs she had been moved to advocate for a change in the law having seen women investigated by police over suspected illegal abortions.
During the Bill's report stage, Ms Antoniazzi assured her colleagues 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, as they are now".
She also told MPs: "This is the right change at the right time. I implore colleagues who want to protect women and girls and abortion services to vote for new clause one. Let's ensure that not a single desperate woman ever again is subject to traumatic, criminal investigation at the worst moments in their lives."
Abortion in England and Wales currently remains a criminal offence but 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.
Efforts to change the law to protect women from prosecution follow 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. The measures to decriminalise abortion still need to complete their legislative journey through both the Commons and the Lords before they can become law.
On issues such as abortion, MPs usually have free votes, meaning they take their own view rather than deciding along party lines.
This is how MPs in the local area voted:
- Chichester: Jess Brown-Fuller (Lib Dem) - in favour
- East Hampshire: Damian Hinds (Conservative) - against
- Fareham and Waterlooville: Suella Braverman (Conservative) - against
- Hamble Valley: Paul Holmes (Conservative) - against
- Portsmouth South: Stephen James Morgan (Labour) - in favour
- Portsmouth North: Amanda Martin (Labour) - in favour
- Havant: Alan Mak (Conservative) - against
- Gosport: Dame Caroline Dinenage (Conservative) - in favour