Calls to peers to vote against extreme abortion amendment

Catholic Archbishop John Sherrington has urged members of the House of Lords to vote down a proposal that will effectively allow abortion as much as the purpose of birth for any reason.

Last 12 months the House of Commons voted in favour of an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that removes all criminal sanctions for ladies who perform their very own abortions at any stage within the pregnancy. 

If passed into law, the proposals in clause 208 wouldn’t change the present 24 week legal limit at which a lady can have an abortion. However they might make it possible for ladies to rearrange their very own abortions beyond this point with no fear of legal consequences.

Critics have said that after a long time of talking in regards to the horrors of coat hangers and back-street abortions, passing the amendment would encourage such activity. The proven fact that a bill ostensibly about law and order and stopping terrorism has now grow to be a vehicle for an extreme pro-abortion position has been condemned by some. Critics have also identified that it opens the door to sex-selective abortions.

A House of Lords vote is because of happen on Wednesday. 

Archbishop Sherrington, who’s the Church’s lead bishop for all times issues, is urging peers to support Baroness Monckton’s amendment to remove clause 208 completely from the Crime and Policing Bill. 

“If not removed, this clause would represent a radical departure from our current law, further threatening the dignity of the unborn child. The clause shouldn’t be supported by the British public,” he said. 

“Apart from the further threat clause 208 poses to the lives of unborn babies and the health of their moms, this transformation would depart women more prone to coercion and abuse.”

The archbishop also called for an end to the controversial “pills-by-post” scheme that enables pregnant women to acquire abortion pills within the mail without the necessity for an in-person meeting with a healthcare skilled.

Proposals to reinstate mandatory in-person consultations prior to receiving pills for an at-home abortion are contained inside a separate amendment tabled by Baroness Stroud.

Critics argue that the pills-by-post scheme is open to abuse, pointing to at least one case wherein a lady obtained the pills and illegally aborted her own baby at around 33 weeks. In one other case, a person was in a position to receive the pills by false means and slip them into the drink of his pregnant girlfriend without her consent. She wished to have the newborn but lost what would have been her first child. She has since been unable to conceive again. 

Archbishop Sherrington is asking peers to also vote in favour of Baroness Stroud’s amendment. 

“As well as resulting in a rise in abortions basically, pills-by-post has led to various late-term, at-home abortions, which have also put the health of the mother in serious danger,” he said. 

He also called on believers to wish for those chargeable for drafting the nations’ laws and for “a healthcare system that respects the dignity of each mother and baby”.

Criticism of the measures passed by the Commons shouldn’t be confined to non secular figures. 

Baroness Stroud’s amendment was co-sponsored by ex-Olympian Sharron Davies. Writing in The Telegraph, she said that although she is “pro-choice”, she believes that reinstating in-person medical consultations before receiving pills by post would “protect women”. She that the pills-by-post service, introduced as a short lived measure in the course of the pandemic, “must have ended afterwards.” 

She said, “Activists may claim the 24-week closing date would remain on paper, since only women administering their very own abortions can be faraway from the criminal law under the proposed law change. However, that is disingenuous when women can obtain pills so easily. 

“Indeed, it’s profoundly unfeminist to suggest that girls, uniquely, ought to be faraway from the criminal law on this area as if women are all the time victims and lack agency.

“Equality requires that girls have equal responsibilities in addition to rights, and are accountable for our actions. The disturbing case of Sarah Catt, who callously aborted a baby at full term in 2010, emphasises the necessity for an ongoing legal deterrent on this area – Catt couldn’t have been prosecuted if the abortion as much as birth proposal had been law.”

She added, “It is difficult to see a major moral distinction between ending the lifetime of a baby shortly before birth and infanticide shortly afterwards.”

The Times newspaper has also come out against removing legal sanctions past 24 weeks. 

“Forty-six minutes of backbench debate. That was the length of time the House of Commons afforded last 12 months to discussing the largest change to abortion laws in greater than half a century … Rarely has a chunk of laws so freighted with ethical dangers, and so heavy with unintended consequences, passed so frivolously,” the newspaper said. 

Baroness Monckton told The Times ahead of Wednesday’s debate that the welfare of the kid had been ignored within the narrative of those supporting full decriminalisation. 

“They say we should always decriminalise women. In all of the reports I’ve read, I actually have not read anything in regards to the other person involved on this. I haven’t read in regards to the child. But I believe not only are we removing the lifetime of the kid, we’re removing the protection for the mother,” she said. 

Kevin Duffy, a former abortion provider director turned pro-life advocate, said there was a “double standard” at play within the push to decriminalise late-term at-home abortions.

“Behind the decision for decriminalisation lies a practical reality: providers avoid later‑term medical abortion due to its risks, complexity, and resource demands – yet campaign for ladies to be legally permitted to aim these procedures alone at home,” he said.

“It is a position that shows a troubling disregard for ladies’s safety and a striking lack of institutional integrity.”