(Natural News) An influential medical union/trade group wants to significantly expand abortion availability in the U.K., apparently to the extent of abortion-on-demand, for any reason, by abolishing criminal penalties currently on the books.

Late last month, two-thirds of the 500 delegates at the British Medical Association's annual meeting approved a motion to decriminalize abortions. The group will now lobby Parliament to change the law.

The BMA, which is the largest group of its kind in the country, passed the motion despite opposition from about 1,000-plus doctors who signed a petition calling for the withdrawal of the motion.

"If the BMA gets its way, medics would not face criminal sanctions for providing, or women for procuring, an abortion in any circumstances, at any stage in a pregnancy," the London Telegraph explained, while adding that the organization still recommends limiting abortion procedures under normal circumstances to the first six months of a pregnancy.

In 2016, U.K. doctors legally terminated about 200,000 pregnancies. (Related: Read more about the abortion industry at Abortions.news.)

In general, existing law permits abortions up to 24 weeks for the health of the mother or if the child is expected to be severely disabled, provided two doctors approve. According to the London Spectator, approval is routine as a practical matter, "And very few medics even go through the motions of establishing that they're signing off on an abortion on this basis."

Under U.K. law, an abortion after 24 weeks  could send an expectant mother to jail for life and the physician to a sentence of five years. The U.K. National Health Service is a completely government-run entity.

As alluded to above, the lofty rhetoric of the BMA motion includes some limitations, Breitbart News reported, but the profit motive could also loom large, as it often does on this side of the Atlantic.