On June 24, the US Supreme Court voted to overturn the landmark case that had enshrined abortion as an American constitutional right since 1973. The power to legislate against it has now been returned to individual US states. As a result, at least half of them are likely to limit access to abortion or ban it altogether. In Britain we have assured ourselves that things are different and that there is no similar revocation of reproductive rights. After the Supreme Court ruling, protesters in the UK turned their anger to America rather than Westminster. Protesters gathered outside the US embassy in London with signs reading “Our bodies, our choice”. Glastonbury was marked by demonstrations protesting the decision, while politicians almost unanimously condemned a decision that Prime Minister Boris Johnson described as a “major step backwards”. However, British campaigners argue that 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 can access an abortion at up to 24 weeks, although the vast majority take place 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. Katherine O’Brien of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas) explains: “Abortion remains illegal in England, Wales and Scotland under a bill 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 provide a legal defense for women and doctors who performed abortions, provided they met the conditions of the law.’ Two doctors must sign off on the procedure to say that continuing the pregnancy is potentially more harmful than terminating it, because of the physical or mental health of the mother, the child if born, or any existing children. “As things stand, abortion is still illegal under a law passed the same year the American Civil War began, long before women had the right to vote,” adds 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.”
