The Handmaid’s Tale might be a work of fiction. But with increasing attacks on women’s reproductive rights, the message it sends to fight for our rights before it’s too late, is for our time. Across the world, women’s bodies are being used as the battlefield of the culture wars – with basic healthcare and equalities protections being ripped up as a result. Yet anyone who thinks we can be complacent about such freedoms in this country isn’t paying attention, either to the threats we face now or could face in the near future. Not least to abortion access. That’s why it’s time to put the right to choose into the law and make sure we guarantee every woman can have an abortion if she wishes.

It seems incredible to say this, but police have been issued guidance on how to check a woman’s phone after an unexpected pregnancy loss to establish her ‘knowledge and intention in relation to the pregnancy’. This can include examining her menstrual cycle tracking apps, search history, and messages. They’ve also been advised on how to search her home for ‘drugs that can terminate pregnancy’, in cases involving stillbirths.

Dr Ranee Thakar, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), has called the new guidance ‘shocking’. ‘Women in these circumstances have a right to compassionate care and to have their dignity and privacy respected, not to have their homes, phones, ­computers and health apps searched, or be arrested and interrogated,’ she says.

There has been an explosion in investigations and prosecutions of women and girls for having abortions in England in recent years. That’s because abortion isn’t actually legal in England and Wales – you are only exempted from prosecution if you have an abortion under certain conditions. This means vulnerable women can be questioned and pursued when they have late term miscarriages.

JD Vance, the Vice President of America has criticised the buffer zones around abortion clinics, which are there to protect women who visit them, allowing them to do so in peace and to not be harassed.

In the UK, Nigel Farage has also begun talking about these issues, possibly sensing a chance to repeat the success of American politicians in using abortion to gain votes. Whether arguing there should be a ‘debate’ about reducing the time limit for a termination or supporting those who say its free speech to protest outside clinics, his interest in these tactics should worry anyone who recognises bodily autonomy is the foundation of equality.

American groups have been running training events for anti-abortion activists in the UK – and money and activists from these networks are flooding into the country.

Decriminalisation alone will not protect the right to choose for women in England and Wales – to do this, we have to look to Northern Ireland where it is a human right to access a safe abortion. This protection has meant not only is access to telemedicine protected, but also abortion buffer zones and service provision itself. That’s why in the coming weeks we will be arguing to introduce the same laws England and Wales. To do this would not mean any change to the settled time limits that have governed access to abortion in this country for over 50 years. It would mean every woman had a right to a safe and legal abortion whoever is in power.

Crucially we are also seeking protections to prevent Ministers overturning this law without democratic consent. If any future Prime Minister wanted to remove a woman’s right to choose, under our proposals they would have to get the agreement of every MP – meaning every one of us could ask our local representative to intervene.

Every MP can choose to support this plan if they choose to co-sign the Creasy amendment to the forthcoming Policing Bill. So, if you don’t want to wait to see more American style attacks on women’s rights in our own politics, then ask your MP to put the right to choose into law and make abortion access not a criminal matter but what it should be – healthcare. It’s time for us to guarantee no woman has to live ‘Under His Eye’ or in fear of what harm the ballot box might bring when it comes to their basic human rights.