Baroness Monckton is leading a group of female Members of the House of Lords, who have tabled an amendment to overturn the highly controversial abortion up to birth clause (191) to the Crime and Policing Bill.

The Antoniazzi abortion up to birth clause

In June 2025, pro-abortion MPs, led by Tonia Antoniazzi MP, hijacked the Crime and Policing Bill to rush through the abortion up to birth clause (191) after just 46 minutes of backbench debate – there was no prior consultation with the public, no Committee Stage scrutiny and no evidence sessions.

The Antoniazzi clause would make it more likely that healthy babies are aborted at home for any reason, up to birth.

The clause would change the law so it would no longer be illegal for women to perform their own abortions for any reason, and at any point up to and during birth.

If this amendment becomes law, it would likely lead to a significant increase in the number of women performing late-term abortions at home, endangering the lives of many more women.

The proposed change to the law would also lead to an increased number of viable babies’ lives being ended well beyond the 24-week abortion time limit and beyond the point at which they would be able to survive outside the womb.

If clause 191 becomes law, it would be the biggest change to abortion legislation since the Abortion Act was introduced in 1967.

Tonia Antoniazzi MP said in an interview that she was comfortable with women being able to abort a viable baby at 37 weeks.

91% of 28,000 respondents to a poll run by The Telegraph said they were opposed to the extreme law change that would be introduced by clause 191.

How clause 191 can be stopped

Ahead of Committee Stage of the Crime and Policing Bill, Baroness Monckton has tabled an amendment to overturn the highly controversial abortion up to birth amendment (clause 191) to the Bill.

If the amendment tabled by Baroness Monckton is passed, it will remove clause 191 from the Bill and ensure that it never becomes law.

Baroness Stroud has joined other Peers in tabling another amendment, along with other Peers, that would ensure that women have an in-person consultation with a medical professional before taking abortion pills at home.

At this consultation, medical professionals would have the opportunity to accurately assess, in person, any likely health risks for a woman taking abortion pills, her gestational age and the possibility of a coerced abortion.

This would help protect women from the health risks involved with performing a late-term abortion, along with identifying many other health risks that can be accurately assessed with an in-person consultation.

It would also protect babies from having their lives ended in late-term home abortions.

Polling shows widespread public support for the law change that had been proposed by Baroness Stroud’s amendment, with two-thirds of women supporting the reinstatement of in-person appointments and only 4% in favour of the status quo.

TAKE ACTION: How can I contact a peer?

Use Right to Life’s E-Action to contact a Peer to make your voice heard stop clause 191.

MPs/Peers voting on abortion laws

Some people have asked how Catholic MPs/Peers can vote on Abortion amendments to legislation. The Holy See offers useful guidance on this from Pope Leo XIV’s predecessors.

In November 2002, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now Dicastery), issued a Doctrinal Note on ‘Some Questions regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life‘ signed by its then-Prefect Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Section 4 of this note refers to Pope Saint John Paul II’s Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae. Paragraph 73 of the encyclical states:

“When it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects.”