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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   17505 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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Apparently, the UKGBNI is set to completely decriminalize abortion in England and Wales when performed by the woman (not when performed by a doctor). According to Reuters and BBC, under existing law abortion by a doctor is legal up to 24 weeks and a woman can perform an abortion on herself with prescribed pills up to 10 weeks. In contrast, the new law—approved by 73 percent of the House of Commons—appears to permit abortion right up to the point of birth when it is performed by the woman.

Text of the law (on pages 108–109 of the PDF; part of a much larger bill):

Tonia Antoniazzi, NC1

To move the following Clause—

Removal of women from the criminal law related to abortion

For the purposes of the law related to abortion, including sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, no offence is committed by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy.

Member's explanatory statement

This new clause would disapply existing criminal law related to abortion from women acting in relation to her own pregnancy at any gestation, removing the threat of investigation, arrest, prosecution, or imprisonment. It would not change any law regarding the provision of abortion services within a healthcare setting, including but not limited to the time limit, telemedicine, the grounds for abortion, or the requirement for two doctors’ approval.

Is there an actual justification for this anywhere or is this just "women can do no wrong" crystallizing into law?

The transcript of the debate appears to support your uncharitable description. Antoniazzi:

Although abortion is available in England and Wales under conditions set by the Abortion Act 1967, the law underpinning it, which dates back to 1861—the Offences Against the Person Act—means that outside those conditions, abortion remains a criminal offence carrying a maximum life sentence. Originally passed by an all-male Parliament elected by men alone, this Victorian law is increasingly used against vulnerable women and girls. Since 2020, more than 100 women have been criminally investigated, six have faced court, and one has been sent to prison. The women affected are often acutely vulnerable. Victims of domestic abuse and violence, human trafficking and sexual exploitation; girls under the age of 18; and women who have suffered miscarriage or stillbirth, or have given birth prematurely, have faced invasive and prolonged criminal investigations that cause long-term harm.

The fact is that new clause 1 would take women out of the criminal justice system, and that is what has to happen and has to change now. There is no way that these women should be facing what they are facing.

I implore colleagues not to lose sight of the moral imperative here: namely, vulnerable women being dragged from hospital bed to police cell on suspicion of ending their own pregnancies. This is urgent. We know that multiple women are still in the system awaiting a decision, accused of breaking this law. They cannot afford to wait.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put an end to this in a simple and secure manner. This is the right change at the right time, so I implore colleagues who want to protect women and abortion services to vote for new clause 1. Let us ensure that not a single desperate woman is ever again subject to traumatic criminal investigation at the worst moments of their lives.

"Women can do no wrong" is an extremely uncharitable reading of this transcript. It seems fairly obvious to me that it's much closer to @MadMonzer's interpretation above: the author does not spend any particular thought on any negative moral valence of deliberately induced abortions at all (whether because he does not think they are morally negative, or because he does not think they are relatively common enough to matter), and is more concerned about the circumstance that women who miscarry would be treated as criminal suspects.

You could imagine a similar justification being fielded in a hypothetical world in which some subset of people is greatly concerned about the evil of pet owners murdering their pet dogs, and so every time a dog dies police have to investigate if the owner may have killed it deliberately. Someone might hold against it that the set of dog owners who are devastated by the death of their dog dwarfs the set of dog owners who would have deliberately killed their dog, and the harm done to the former by such an investigation just matters more than whatever cases of the latter the investigation will deter. Would this perspective amount to "dog owners can do no wrong"?

(On the object level, miscarriages are common! Among the people I know well enough to know such details, more have miscarried at least once than have successfully had children without a single miscarriage.)

I live in Texas, with probably the strictest abortion laws among high income countries(maybe Liechtenstein?). No prosecutions for miscarriage have happened here- and 40% of the childbearing aged women without elective abortion in the U.S. live here.

More to the point, there really, legitimately are lots of people who, when it comes to abortion specifically, do not think there’s a possible case of abortion that is morally wrong. Relatively recently, in Louisiana, there was a case of a young woman who wanted to keep her pregnancy and was deceived by her mother into taking an abortion pill ordered from out of state. The pro-choice crowd did not seem to respect this young lady’s choice to keep her baby- including the governor of New York, from which this abortion pill came.

More to the point, there really, legitimately are lots of people who, when it comes to abortion specifically, do not think there’s a possible case of abortion that is morally wrong.

I mean, I know - I'm one of them! The case you describe still does sound morally wrong to me, in the same way in which drugging your daughter and submitting her to a cosmetic surgery would be. This is still not "women can do no wrong" - it's interesting how culture warriors on both sides refuse to believe that the other side could actually disagree with them on the moral status of fetuses, and think it must actually all be about women (blue: "red just wants to punish women for recreational sex" - red: "blue thinks women can do no wrong").

(Not that I'm not guilty of this myself - it is still genuinely different for me to believe in my heart that right-wingers really think fetuses are people being murdered, and it's not just a case of the real principle being rationalised by a loftier one like when people always remember international law when their enemies break it. It's hard when many of the same people are arguing a few threads down that women having sex with no prospect of marriage or childbirth is the root of all of our problems.)

It's hard when many of the same people are arguing a few threads down that women having sex with no prospect of marriage or childbirth is the root of all of our problems.

Why is this hard? If anything, their consistency should reinforce your belief in their integrity.

In what way is this integrity? If this is actually what is going on, it's more like motte ("abortion is murder, I want to stop murder") and bailey ("nothing to force hoes to become housewives like saddling them with a baby").

Their belief is that the wicked actions of women are corrupting them, and they're consistent on this. Of course a lifestyle that embraces infanticide is also self-destructive and corrosive to society more broadly.

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