christinejardinefacts.co.uk

Clause 191 (originally New Clause 1) was tabled by Tonia Antoniazzi MP (Labour) during the Report Stage of the Crime and Policing Bill. It passed the House of Commons on 17 June 2025 by 379 votes to 137.

The clause disapplies existing criminal law on abortion — including sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 — from women acting in relation to their own pregnancies, at any stage of gestation.

In practical terms, this means that a woman who ends her own pregnancy cannot be investigated, arrested, prosecuted, or imprisoned under these statutes, regardless of how advanced the pregnancy is. The clause does not change the law governing healthcare providers — doctors and clinics remain subject to the existing regulatory framework, including the 24-week limit under the Abortion Act 1967.

Antoniazzi, Tonia. "Crime and Policing Bill, New Clause 1 (now Clause 191)," 2025. Division: votes.parliament.uk.

Christine Jardine voted in favour of New Clause 1 on 17 June 2025. Her vote is recorded in the official House of Commons division list.

She also spoke in support of decriminalising abortion during a Westminster Hall debate on 2 June 2025. At the time of this vote, she held the position of Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Women and Equalities.

She subsequently voted for Clause 191 (the renumbered version of New Clause 1) at Third Reading.

Hansard, Westminster Hall debate, 2 June 2025: hansard.parliament.uk. Division, 17 June 2025: theyworkforyou.com.

On 24 June 2025, Christine Jardine wrote to constituents who had contacted her about her vote (reference: CJ30250). Her reply opened by stating that there had been "a lot of misinformation" about the amendment. She then made three specific claims:

"The time limits and all other laws and regulations around the provision of abortion care remain in place. It will remain the case that no doctor will provide an abortion beyond the 24-week limit without it meeting one of a very small number of exceptional criteria, such as a serious threat to the life or health of the woman. The amendment simply removes the threat of criminal liability for women who end their pregnancies."

"This does not allow 'sex-selective abortion'. The amendment makes no change to the grounds on which abortion can be provided, the current guidance around sex-selective abortion, or the requirement for two doctors to certify that a woman meets one of the grounds for abortion."

Each of these claims is examined in detail below.

Jardine, Christine. Reply to Constituent Correspondence, ref. CJ30250, 24 June 2025.

The telemedicine transformation

In 2018, essentially no abortions took place at home. By 2023, approximately 72% did — a transformation made possible by the permanent legalisation of telemedicine abortion through the Health and Care Act 2022, Section 178.

Under the telemedicine scheme, a woman telephones a provider, states her gestational age, and receives abortion pills (mifepristone and misoprostol) by post. There is no ultrasound, no in-person examination, and no identity verification. The clinical pathway Jardine cited in her reply — where a doctor assesses the woman and certifies that grounds are met — is bypassed entirely for the majority of procedures.

The enforcement mechanism is gone

Prior to Clause 191, two mechanisms enforced the time limit on self-administered abortions: the clinical pathway (now bypassed by telemedicine) and the criminal sanction on the woman (removed by Clause 191). With both gone, the 24-week limit exists on paper and nowhere else.

Documented cases

Carla Foster (2023): Obtained pills by telemedicine after misrepresenting her gestational age. She was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant. No in-person assessment took place. Convicted at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court; sentenced to 28 months, reduced on appeal to 14 months suspended.

Nicola Packer (2025): Told Marie Stopes she was less than seven weeks pregnant. She was 26 weeks — two weeks beyond the legal limit and at least 16 weeks beyond the telemedicine limit. She received pills by post. A post-mortem found the baby was healthy. Acquitted at Isleworth Crown Court on 8 May 2025.

Systemic vulnerability

An undercover investigation by Kevin Duffy, former Global Director of Clinics Development at Marie Stopes International, found that all eight volunteers acquired mifepristone and misoprostol using false names, false dates of birth, and false gestational dates. A separate mystery client exercise found BPAS call handlers telling women to "attach" a legal reason to their request — described as an open admission that the statutory grounds are treated as a formality.

Baroness Foster stated in the House of Lords on 2 February 2026 that cases where women took abortion pills beyond the legal limit "have involved the women misleading the abortion provider about her gestational age."

DHSC, Abortion Statistics, England and Wales: 2023 (2026). Parliament of the United Kingdom, Health and Care Act 2022, Section 178. R v Carla Foster, Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court, June 2023. R v Nicola Packer, Isleworth Crown Court, May 2025. Duffy, Kevin. Written Evidence to Parliamentary Committee, 2020: committees.parliament.uk. Baroness Foster, Crime and Policing Bill — Committee Stage (14th Day), Hansard, 2 February 2026.

For 72% of abortions, no doctor is involved at any stage. The cases of Foster and Packer demonstrate that women have obtained pills under false pretences and self-administered them at 26 and 32–34 weeks respectively.

Jardine's claim is technically accurate in the narrowest possible sense — and substantively meaningless. The system she voted to make permanent has removed the doctor from the process. The question is not whether a doctor will provide a late abortion. It is whether anything prevents a woman from obtaining one without a doctor. The evidence shows that it does not.

Under Clause 191, a woman who obtains and self-administers abortion pills at any stage of pregnancy — including full term — faces no criminal liability. The only remaining safeguard is the honesty of her self-reported gestational age on a telephone call.

R v Carla Foster (2023); R v Nicola Packer (2025). DHSC, Abortion Statistics, England and Wales: 2023 (2026).

The Government's own data

Six months after Jardine's letter, the Department of Health and Social Care published its birth ratio analysis under Section 84 of the Serious Crime Act 2015. The Government's own researchers found a "statistically significant imbalance" in the ratio of boys to girls born to Indian-origin parents in Britain, concluding that approximately 400 baby girls were sex-selectively aborted between 2017 and 2021.

The suppressed reports

The Section 84 reports were mandated on a regular schedule and were due in October/November 2024 and 2025. The Labour Government failed to publish them on time. This meant the data was unavailable when MPs were debating and voting on Clause 191 — including when Stella Creasy told the House that "nobody can prove that abortion for sex selection reasons has happened." The Government sat on data that contradicted the case being made for the legislation it was allowing to pass.

The provider's position

BPAS — the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, through which the majority of abortions are administered — states on its website that the law is "silent" on sex-selective abortion and that it is "not specifically prohibited." Its former CEO Ann Furedi publicly defended women's right to seek abortion on grounds of fetal sex, stating there was "no legal requirement to deny a woman an abortion if she has a sex preference."

The structural pathway

Under the system Jardine has supported, a woman obtains pills by telephone without identity verification, without ultrasound, and without scrutiny of her reasons. The sex of a baby can be determined from ten weeks. The "two doctors certifying grounds" — the safeguard Jardine cited — never enter the picture. Under Clause 191, the woman faces no criminal consequence. The pathway from sex determination to unsupervised, unpunishable termination is structurally complete.

89% of the British public opposes sex-selective abortion.

DHSC, Birth Ratio Analysis under Section 84, Serious Crime Act 2015 (2025). BPAS, "Position on Sex-Selective Abortion" (2017). ComRes, Polling on Sex-Selective Abortion (2023).

Christine Jardine's reply to her constituents did not contain a single reference to the unborn child. This absence is significant. If the child were acknowledged, the language of "simply removing criminal liability" would be difficult to sustain.

Fetal pain

Research by Gitau and Fisk demonstrated measurable cortisol and beta-endorphin stress responses to invasive stimuli from 18 to 20 weeks' gestation. Derbyshire and Bockmann, writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics, argued that pain experience may be possible from 12–13 weeks, mediated by subcortical structures. By the third trimester, the neurological architecture for conscious pain is well established. From approximately 22 weeks, a child can survive outside the womb.

What the drugs do

The physiological effect of mifepristone is to block progesterone, causing the placental lining to break down and detach. Misoprostol causes powerful uterine contractions. At 32 weeks — the gestational age in the Foster case — the result is progressive oxygen deprivation, compression, and prolonged asphyxiation of a being with an established capacity to suffer.

Gitau, R., and N. M. Fisk. "Fetal Cortisol and Beta-Endorphin Stress Responses to Invasive Stimuli," Archives of Disease in Childhood: Fetal and Neonatal Edition, 2005. Derbyshire, S. W. G., and J. C. Bockmann. "Reconsidering Fetal Pain," Journal of Medical Ethics 46 (2020): 3–6.

On 17 June 2025, 379 MPs voted in favour of New Clause 1 (now Clause 191) of the Crime and Policing Bill. 137 voted against. The full list of MPs who voted Aye is below, with parliamentary email addresses sourced from the UK Parliament Members API and the Commons Votes API.

If your MP is on this list, they voted to remove criminal liability from women who end their own pregnancies at any stage of gestation. You are entitled to ask them to explain that vote.

Source: House of Commons Division 232, 17 June 2025. Email addresses retrieved from the UK Parliament Members API on 3 March 2026.

On 10 February 2026, a detailed letter was sent to Christine Jardine setting out the evidence above, with full references to government data, criminal case evidence, and parliamentary proceedings. The letter made three specific requests:

First, that she retract her characterisation of constituent concerns as "misinformation."

Second, that she justify each of her three claims in light of the evidence, or withdraw them.

Third, that she state whether she continues to support Clause 191 as it proceeds through the House of Lords, and explain how she reconciles that support with the evidence.

A follow-up was sent on 22 February 2026 and again on 2 March 2026. As of 3 March 2026, no response has been received.

Read the full letter (PDF, 6 pages)

This site is published by Richard Lyon, a resident of Edinburgh West and constituent of Christine Jardine MP.

I am not opposed to abortion access. I support a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy within limits that reflect the developing capacity of the child to feel pain and to survive outside the womb. What I oppose is the removal of all legal safeguards from a process that the Government's own data shows is already being exploited — and the willingness of my elected representative to dismiss evidence of that exploitation as "misinformation."

Every factual claim on this site is sourced from government publications, court records, or parliamentary proceedings. The full reference list is below.

3 March 2026 — Health and Care Act 2022: The letter of 10 February 2026 stated that Christine Jardine voted in favour of Section 178 of the Health and Care Act 2022, which made permanent the telemedicine abortion scheme. This was incorrect. A review of the parliamentary division records shows that Jardine was absent from all six Health and Care Bill divisions on 30 March 2022, including Division 237 on the Government's amendment in lieu of Lords Amendment 92 (the telemedicine provision). This claim is withdrawn.

The substantive argument is unaffected: the telemedicine system exists, 72% of abortions now take place through it without in-person verification, and Jardine's CJ30250 letter cited its clinical pathway as a safeguard while voting for Clause 191 which removes the last criminal sanction that enforced it.

Commons Votes API, Division 1273 (Number 237), 30 March 2022: commonsvotes-api.parliament.uk.