The new abortion law is nothing to fear

Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi’s amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill did not, in fact, remove abortion as a crime from the criminal statute in England and Wales .

Abortion remains a crime, just as it has since 1968 , unless the procedure is carried out in a hospital or licensed clinic, or the abortion pills are prescribed by a doctor to take at home; and the pregnancy must be less than 24 weeks gestation.

Ann Furedi is author of The Moral Case for Abortion: A Defence of Reproductive Choice .

She says abortion providers bear some responsibility for the calamitous hysteria provoked by last week's decision.

She believes that early abortion is less contentious than later procedures.

But we have backed away from defence of later abortions because they are the least understood and most harrowing procedures.