r/uknews

Wera Hobhouse is the Liberal Democrat MP for Bath

Abortion has always involved deeply-held personal, ethical and religious beliefs. But for decades there has been a broad political consensus in the UK that decisions about pregnancy belong to women, their families and their healthcare providers, not politicians looking for a new culture war battleground. That non-partisan consensus is now under pressure.

Recent reporting has revealed a growing effort by Reform UK figures, anti-abortion campaigners and far-right activists to make abortion a new frontier in Britain’s culture wars. The language is becoming increasingly familiar: inflammatory rhetoric, misinformation, moral panic and attempts to portray established reproductive rights as somehow radical or extreme.

We should not dismiss this as political noise. Many people look at what has happened in the United States and assume it could never happen here.

They point to our different political traditions and our strong public support for abortion rights.

But rights are rarely lost overnight. More often, they are gradually politicised before they are challenged.

The rollback of abortion rights in America did not begin with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. It began years earlier, with a deliberate effort to make reproductive rights a political dividing line. Issues that had previously been treated as matters of healthcare or personal opinion became tools in a broader political ideological campaign. That should serve as a warning.

Only recently, Parliament voted overwhelmingly to decriminalise abortion for women in England and Wales – the biggest step forward for reproductive rights in six decades. I was proud to support that change. The reform was not about expanding access to abortion or changing time limits, it simply recognised that women should not face criminal investigation, prosecution or imprisonment because of circumstances surrounding their own pregnancies.

Since 2020, around 100 women have been investigated by police following pregnancy loss or suspected abortion offences. Some investigations involved women who had suffered miscarriages. Six women faced court proceedings and one woman was imprisoned under legislation rooted in the Victorian-era Offences Against the Person Act 1861. No woman experiencing pregnancy loss should have to fear becoming the subject of a traumatic criminal investigation.

Yet even before decriminalisation has had time to take effect, there are already calls from some Reform UK figures and their allies to reverse it.

What worries me is not simply disagreement over policy – healthy democracies will always contain disagreement – it is the deliberate attempt to import the tactics and language of America’s abortion wars into British politics.

Open Democracy reported that the UK arm of The Alliance Defending Freedom, an organisation closely associated with anti-abortion campaigning in the United States, has received more than £2 million in funding from its American parent organisation while campaigning against abortion clinic safe access zones.

Its analysis also found a significant increase in abortion-related content among Reform-linked and far-right social media accounts over the past two years. These posts generated hundreds of thousands of interactions and frequently relied on inflammatory language designed to provoke outrage rather than inform debate.

The objective is not simply to oppose abortion, it is to make reproductive freedom politically toxic again... (continued)

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Almost a third of people polled believe Andy Burnham would be the most capable Prime Minister for the country, while only 16 per cent think Nigel Farage could capably lead the UK, according to polling conducted by Ipsos for LBC.

When forced to choose between leading political figures, 30% of respondents backed Burnham, while 13 per cent backed Kemi Badenoch as PM - with the Reform UK leader polling 3 per cent above the Tory leader.

However, when asked about leaders' readiness, the same survey found that 40 per cent believe Burnham isn't ready to take on the top job.
More than 1,000 adults aged over 18 were interviewed by IPSOS on their views of the main parties and their leaders.