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We care about women

We Care About Women


SPUC's campaign against abortion decriminalisation 


  • The abortion lobby wants to repeal or amend sections 58 and 59 of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act and take abortion out of the criminal law. This is what is meant by decriminalising abortion.
  • Proposals to amend Section 58 of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act (administering drugs or using instruments to procure abortion), would mean that there would be no legal protection at all for unborn babies up to 24 weeks.
  • Repealing section 59 of the 1861 Act (procuring drugs to cause abortion) would allow anyone to supply the means for an abortion without criminal sanction. 
  • The threat of decriminalisation in England and Wales is all the more likely following repeal of Sections 58 and 59 in Northern Ireland in July 2019.
We Care About Women

SPUC's briefing on the We care about women campaign

 Please click the image to download. 

You can use this briefing to inform yourself fully of the issues at stake.

You can also use this information in this briefing when writing to your MP on this subject.

Three key points on abortion decriminalisation

The British Medical Association voted in favour of decriminalisation of abortion in 2017 and said that abortion should be regulated in the same way as other medical procedures.

However, abortion is not the same as any other medical procedure. In fact, it is not a medical procedure at all. Abortion involves the destruction of a human life and it cannot be put on the same footing as genuinely medical procedures which are simply intended to heal and save human lives.

Decriminalisation is being promoted as an option for desperate women - victims of rape and domestic abuse. But if a woman is desperate, she needs care and compassion not abortion pills.


Take Action

The campaign to defeat abortion decriminalisation is ongoing. Please sign up to our Action Alert email list so that we can contact you directly about specific action to take, for example asking your MP to vote down measures to decriminalise abortion. You can download SPUC's briefing above.

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