Episode
Letters on Liberty: Abortion and the Freedom to Forge Our Own Fate
- Podcast
- Academy of Ideas
- Published
- Mar 27, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 4758
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Summary
Following the vote in the House of Lords to approve the decriminalisation of women who have abortions after the legal limit of 24 weeks, the whole issue of abortion itself has once again become highly contested. In that context, this debate – recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October – is very topical. ORIGINAL FESTIVAL INTRODUCTION Since 2020, the Academy of Ideas has published Letters on Liberty – a radical pamphlet series aimed at reimagining arguments for freedom today and inspiring rowdy, good-natured disagreement. In her Letter – Abortion and the Freedom to Forge Our Own Fate – Ann Furedi, an author and former chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, argues that debates about abortion often focus on when human life begins in the womb. Instead, she argues that it is important to consider a different human life – that of the woman. Furedi argues that the future of a woman’s pregnancy should be for her alone to decide, and this decision ought to be regarded as personal and private. There is no clearer illustration of the way choice, agency and responsibility matters than the consequences of a woman’s decision about her pregnancy, she says. To prevent someone from exercising their own choice, in a personal and private matter, is to strip them of their dignity and their humanity. Most importantly, she argues, we cannot respect the principles of freedom without acknowledging the freedom of reproductive choice. However, abortion is still regulated by law and legal limits, which can lead to a clash between an individual woman’s rights and policy priorities. This was vividly illustrated by the recent backlash after MPs voted to change abortion legislation to stop women in England and Wales being prosecuted for ending their preg…