WOMEN’S rights groups and health workers are joining up today to demand an end to the criminalisation of abortion in Britain.

Women terminating their own pregnancies can still be sent to prison for life under laws created before women could even vote.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and a series of feminist groups are launching the We Trust Women campaign to fight to change the law.

BPAS chief executive Ann Furedi argued ahead of the launch that as an estimated one in three British women has an abortion, the procedure should be dealt with like any other healthcare issue.

“The ability to end a pregnancy has enabled women to live their lives in the way that they see fit and bear children at the time they think is right,” she said.

“It is high time we recognised this by taking abortion out of the criminal law, and making clear that we trust women to make their own decisions about their own lives and bodies.”

The 1967 Abortion Act makes terminations legal if two doctors approve them, though exceptions still apply across Britain.

Self-induced terminations are still punishable under a set of 1861 laws — making Britain the harshest abortion punisher in Europe after Ireland.

A woman in Durham was jailed for over two years in 2015 for purposely miscarrying using medication bought online.

Royal College of Midwives chief executive Cathy Warwick backed the campaign, saying: “The system should be offering support, treatment and care, not obstacles.

“This is Victorian legislation that should already have been relegated to history, yet it is still deeply affecting women in the 21st century.”