British women are being jailed under archaic abortion laws. MPs can act to end that this week | Frances Ryan

You might have seen their faces. Every few months nowadays, another woman appears in a British newspaper charged with a suspected illegal abortion. Often the woman looks pale and gaunt. Sometimes she hides behind sunglasses as she bows her head. The photographs of these women walking into court feel akin to a public shaming, where the stocks are replaced by a breaking news banner, but the judgment remains the same.

If this sounds like a punishment from a different time, it’s because it is. The law that’s largely used to prosecute women for a suspected illegal abortion was written in 1861 – that’s before women had the right to vote or own property independently. While the Abortion Act in 1967 gave widespread access to abortion, it was never made fully legal on the statute…