Lords seek to stop abortion as much as birth becoming law

Members of the House of Lords are searching for to stop the imposition of an extreme abortion regime in England and Wales.

Earlier this yr the House of Commons voted in favour of an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that removed all legal sanctions to carrying out an abortion after the 20-week limit. If it becomes law, the amendment will effectively legalise abortion as much as the purpose of birth.

As well as removing the amendment, peers are also reintroducing the requirement that those searching for an abortion receive an in-person consultation with a medical skilled. This requirement was removed throughout the Covid lockdowns and led to the ‘pills-by-post’ scheme that allowed at home abortions without medical supervision.

The scheme has been criticised following a variety of serious abuses, including one man who was sent to jail after giving his pregnant girlfriend abortion medication he had obtained via the pills-by-post scheme. This resulted in the girl losing the child and she or he has not been capable of conceive since.  

In one other harrowing case, a girl was prosecuted after misleading abortion providers into sending her abortion pills by claiming she was only seven weeks pregnant when she was actually between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant. Critics of the pills-by-post service argue that the tragedy might have been avoided if there had been an in-person consultation.

In the Lords, the Crime and Policing Bill got here up for debate at Second Reading. Of the 20 peers who spoke on the abortion amendment, 13 were against it and 7 in favour.

Baroness Monckton has tabled an amendment that might undo the Commons try to remove legal sanctions from abortion. Her colleague, Baroness Stroud has also tabled an amendment requiring in-person consultations for those searching for an abortion.

Baroness Monckton said, “This is an extreme social change for which there is no such thing as a public pressure or demand, and will have tragic consequences for ladies, in addition to resulting in increased numbers of abortions of viable babies.

“This radical clause was added to the Bill after lower than an hour of debate by MPs, and without the obligatory scrutiny required for a difficulty of such seriousness. Whatever one’s views on abortion, this shouldn’t be how responsible laws are made.”

Baroness Stroud, talking of her own amendment, said that the rise in prosecutions of girls performing illegal late-term abortions was a direct results of the pills-by-post scheme.

“The solution to such cases shouldn’t be to make matters worse by removing the legal deterrent against women performing their very own at-home abortions as much as birth, which might likely endanger women further, but to reinstate in-person consultations”.

“I, and lots of others, warned of the risks of the ‘pills by post’ scheme when it was introduced. Sadly, those warnings have come true. My amendment would ensure medical professionals can accurately assess a girl’s gestational age, any health risks and the chance of coercion before abortion pills are prescribed.”