On March 18, abortion law in the United Kingdom underwent a profound — and, to some, deeply troubling — change. At the center of the controversy is Clause 208 of the Crime and Policing Bill.

Introduced by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, the clause passed in the House of Commons on June 17, 2025 and was supported by the House of Lords on March 18 of this year.

India — the largest country of origin for migrants to the United Kingdom — accounts for roughly half of the world’s ‘missing females’ at birth.

While presented as a compassionate update to Victorian-era laws, the clause effectively creates a legal disparity that anyone concerned with the sanctity of life may find objectionable.

Exempting women

To understand the scale of the change, American readers need context. The Abortion Act of 1967 did not legalize abortion outright. Instead, it established exemptions. Termination was permitted only if two doctors agreed that the pregnancy posed a risk to the physical or mental health of the mother or her existing children. Outside those conditions, abortion remained a criminal offense under the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861. Today, the general legal limit for abortion in the U.K. is 24 weeks.

Clause 208 fundamentally alters that framework. It removes women entirely from the scope of the 1861 Act. In practical terms, a woman can no longer be prosecuted for ending her own pregnancy at any stage — including up to birth. Medical professionals, however, remain bound by the 1967 Act. A doctor who performs an abortion past the 24-week limit without specific medical justification still faces potential prosecution, including life imprisonment.

The result is an asymmetry: The individual is exempt from criminal liability, while the practitioner is not. By removing legal risk from the woman — particularly in an era of pills by post and self-managed abortion — the law effectively permits abortion on request, even if formal restrictions on providers remain.

Unprecedented levels

This comes at a time when abortion rates have reached unprecedented levels. In January, the government released the 2023 abortion figures for England and Wales. The numbers showed there were 277,970 abortions — the highest recorded since the 1967 Act was introduced. If current trends continue, the U.K. is projected to surpass 300,000 annual terminations when the next figures are released.

Nearly one-third of pregnancies in England and Wales now end in abortion. In 2023, approximately 32% of all conceptions resulted in termination. Much of this increase is attributed to the “pills by post” scheme introduced during COVID-19 and made permanent in 2022. By allowing women to access abortifacients without an in-person consultation, the policy has lowered practical barriers to abortion and accelerated its normalization.

Critics of Clause 208 also point to the absence of a clear public mandate. Despite the scope of the change — effectively eliminating the prospect of prosecution for late-term self-abortion — there was no referendum or broad public consultation.

Polling from Savanta ComRes suggests that while most Britons support access to abortion, only a small minority — around 1% — support access up to birth. The same polling found that 70% of women believe the current 24-week limit should be reduced. On this reading, the law moves in the opposite direction of public sentiment.

RELATED: No more stiff upper lip: My fellow Brits are fed up with ‘diversity’

SOPA Images/Getty Images

Sex-selective abortion

Concerns extend beyond process to potential consequences. Baroness Rosa Monckton, a life peer in the U.K.’s House of Lords, warned that the removal of legal liability could encourage sex-selective abortion. The NHS typically discloses fetal sex at the 20-week scan. Without legal deterrence, critics argue, there is little to prevent termination based on sex.

Globally, sex-selective abortion has been documented for decades, particularly in countries such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, where cultural and economic pressures — especially the dowry system — have historically incentivized a preference for sons. India — the largest country of origin for migrants to the United Kingdom — accounts for roughly half of the world’s “missing females” at birth.

Inevitably, some long-standing cultural traditions have persisted within these communities.

Some institutions dispute that risk. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service has described sex-selective abortion as a myth, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has stated that statistical evidence remains inconclusive.

Imported misogyny

Yet recent data challenges these claims. Analysis from the Department of Health and Social Care found that while sex ratios among first and second births to women of Indian origin align with the national average, third births show a marked imbalance — 118 boys for every 100 girls.

The same analysis estimates that approximately 400 sex-selective abortions of female fetuses of Indian heritage occurred between 2017 and 2021, describing this as the first measurable evidence of the phenomenon in official statistics.

This raises a broader concern that legal changes intended to expand autonomy may also make it easier for society and the state to overlook grave issues such as infanticide, coercion, or sex-selective abortion. In prioritizing rights and compassion for the mother, the law now raises serious questions about the status and protection of the most vulnerable.

Liberal shibboleths

The rise of sex-selective abortion in the U.K. results from the convergence of several misguided liberal shibboleths: that “multiculturalism” permits minority groups to practice antiquated cultural customs in Britain without scrutiny; that rights of citizenship do not require corresponding responsibilities; and that any restrictions on the actions of adult women are automatically sexist and patriarchal.

The implications extend beyond individual cases. At a time when Britain faces rapid demographic change and fewer young people are choosing to start families, abortion is increasingly becoming a question of national survival. If the 300,000 pregnancies ended by abortion each year had gone to term, the U.K. population could have grown by nearly a million over just three years. Instead we rely on immigration to support our aging population, all in service of the “economic growth” idolized by elites.

Britain now faces a choice. Clause 208 is not merely a technical adjustment to outdated law. It marks a turning point — one that forces the country to confront fundamental questions about life, responsibility, and the limits of autonomy.

​Abortion act 1967, Abortion law, Demographic change, Fetal femicide, House of lords, Immigration, Lateterm abortion, Sexselective abortion, Letter from the uk, Culture 

President Donald Trump implored GOP lawmakers on Tuesday to “UNIFY” in support of an 18-month extension of a particular spying power that, while ostensibly limited to foreigners, has already been weaponized against American citizens — including Trump.

The warrantless surveillance authority of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was both used to spy on Trump’s 2016 campaign and exploited in recent years by the FBI hundreds of thousands of times to spy on U.S. citizens. However, Trump has now determined that it is presently “right for our Country” and needed by the military.

Background

Section 702 is a provision of FISA enacted by Congress in 2008 that enables the state to spy on foreign nationals located outside the U.S. with the compelled aid of electronic communication service providers. The surveillance is authorized programmatically such that the government doesn’t have to bother seeking a court-authorized warrant for every person it targets.

‘Do what is right for our Country.’

Although individuals targeted under 702 are supposed to be foreign nationals believed to be outside the U.S., the FBI has acknowledged that “such targets may send an email or have a phone call with a U.S. person,” resulting in the warrantless surveillance of American citizens.

Numerous Republicans, including Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Mike Lee (Utah), were especially critical of Section 702 after the FBI admitted there had been 278,000 “unintentional” backdoor search queries of the 702 database for the private communications of Americans between 2020 and 2021 alone.

Jan. 6 protesters, donors to a congressional campaign, and BLM protesters were among the American citizens subjected to the warrantless searches.

New circumstances

Trump, who advocated in 2024 for killing FISA, said on Tuesday that he was working with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other Republicans to “get a clean extension of FISA 702 through the House of Representatives this week.”

RELATED: ‘Clear abuse’: Appellate court thwarts Judge Boasberg’s plan to investigate top Trump officials

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The president noted that he “was a victim of the worst and most illegal abuse of FISA in our Nation’s History, by Radical Left Lunatics, who lied to the FISA Court to spy on my 2016 President Campaign in their attempt to RIG the Election in favor of Crooked Hillary Clinton. Their use of this instrument in the 2020 President was even worse!”

“When the Dirty Cop, James Comey, the failed Head of the FBI, went after me, he was using FISA Title I, the Domestic Collection, not FISA 702, the Foreign Collection, which needs to be extended to,” continued Trump.

The Obama FBI utilized FISA Title I authority to target the 2016 Trump campaign during the bureau’s Crossfire Hurricane frame-up.

The FBI submitted multiple applications to authorize FISA surveillance of Carter Page, a U.S. citizen then serving as an adviser to Trump. The applications that were approved were loaded with “17 significant inaccuracies and omissions,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General.

Trump acknowledged that FISA authority has been used against him in the past and may be weaponized against him in the future but stressed that he is “willing to risk that as a Citizen in order to do what is right for our Country.”

According to the president, the military “desperately needs FISA 702, and it is one of the reasons we have had such tremendous SUCCESS on the battlefield, both in Venezuela and Iran.”

“The fact is, whether you like FISA or not, it is extremely important to our Military,” continued Trump. “I have spoken to many Generals about this, and they consider it VITAL.”

Trump’s Tuesday message greatly resembles a Truth Social message he shared last month, in which he also said that he wanted “the Critical and Common Sense Reforms that were made in the last Reauthorization of FISA” to “remain intact to protect the American People from abuses.”

The House Rules Committee advanced a clean extension of the surveillance powers on Tuesday, setting the stage for a floor vote on extending Section 702 ahead of the April 20 deadline, reported The Hill.

While some Republican critics of Section 702 have reversed their stances like the president in light of the reforms added to the provision, it remains unclear if Johnson presently has the votes to see it pass. Politico reported that several GOP lawmakers are planning to vote “no.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​702, Crossfire hurricane, Fbi, Fisa, Foreign intelligence surveillance act, House rules committee, President donald trump, Section 702, Us department of justice, House speaker mike johnson, Surveillance, Warrantless, Spyying, Domestic spying, Domestic surveillance, Politics 

Last Sunday, President Trump posted an AI-generated meme of himself dressed in white and red robes, his hand appearing to hold a glowing orb, while healing a sick person in a hospital bed. Many interpreted the image as Trump depicting himself as Jesus and were deeply offended by what they perceived as religious blasphemy. Others defended the post as an innocent joke.

But Glenn Beck says all of these reactions are missing the bigger issue.

Citing a Washington post article that framed the meme as the cause of rare, strong backlash and blasphemy accusations from Trump’s evangelical and Catholic supporters, Glenn begins by calling out the outlet for politically capitalizing on a tasteless joke in order to rile up and divide Trump’s supporters.

“It’s not like Jesus is Muhammad. You can do whatever you want to Jesus in this country and nobody cares, it seems,” he says. “Since when did the Washington Post care about something that could be looked upon as blasphemy for Christians?”

“They only care because it’s political,” he argues.

Glenn explains that social media has become a powerful tool that enemies — domestic and foreign — use to push propaganda, stir up dissent, and manufacture outrage.

Research has just shown that foreign powers are doing this in America right now.

Glenn cites recent data showing that “60% of the most viral posts on X about Iran in the first weeks of the fighting came from accounts based outside of the US. Foreign accounts generated 155 million views compared to 93 million from real American viewers.”

“That’s not organic outrage, okay? That’s Iran. That’s Russia. That’s China flooding the zone with deepfakes, doctored images of sunken ships, scripted narratives designed to make us fight one another,” he argues.

These foreign powers “don’t care if you love Trump or hate Trump,” Glenn continues.

“They just need everybody at each other’s throats.”

The biggest issue with Trump’s Jesus meme, says Glenn, isn’t what it might or might not have conveyed; the biggest issue is that it served as fuel for the social media outrage machine that keeps us fighting one another, which is exactly what our enemies want.

“[Social media] is a .50-caliber machine gun aimed at your head and this civilization every single day. It’s a nuclear weapon,” he warns.

To hear more, watch the video above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Aigenerated meme, Blaze media, Blazetv, China, Divide trumps supporters, Foreign powers, Iran, Manufacture outrage, Political capitalizing, President trump, Propaganda, Religious blasphemy, Russia, Social media, The glenn beck program, Trump, Trump jesus meme, Trump jesus post, Viral posts, Washington post