Lords move to decriminalise abortion up to birth

The House of Lords have voted to approve the details of the Crime and Policing Bill that will decriminalise abortion up to birth. Peers voted down amendments that would have removed the controversial clause 208 of the Bill, allowing the legislation to pass unchanged.

The clause that decriminalises abortion up to birth was introduced by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi last year. The House of Commons passed the legislation back in June despite only 46 minutes of debate on the issue.

Baroness Monckton tabled an amendment to the Bill in the Lords to remove the “radical proposal” which she said was passed in the Commons “without any evidence, scrutiny, public consultation or impact assessment”. She argued that decriminalisation actually puts women in danger “by removing the current legal deterrent against administering an abortion away from a clinical setting right up to birth”.

Peers rejected the amendment, however, in a vote of 185 to 148. They also rejected another amendment that would have reintroduced in-person consultations with a medical professional before being prescribed medication to terminate a pregnancy, ending the so-called ‘pills by post’ scheme.

The Lords however supported Lady Thornton’s amendment to pardon women convicted of having an abortion, and remove their details from police databases, by 180 votes to 58.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, opposed decriminalisation and said: “Though its intention may not be to change the 24-week abortion limit, it undoubtedly risks eroding the safeguards and enforcement of those legal limits and, inadvertently, undermining the value of human life.”

CARE’s Director of Advocacy and Policy, Caroline Ansell, said: “We are deeply troubled and grieved by the outcome last night in the House of Lords on the amendments relating to abortion.

“By rejecting the opportunity to remove the highly controversial clause allowing women to abort their own babies up to birth without legal consequences, Peers have instead endorsed a dangerous principle which may prove truly terrible in practice with more, not fewer, women taking desperate and risky steps to end late term pregnancy.

“Tiny lives will be lost before they have begun. If the mark of a just society is how we treat the most vulnerable, what does this say about us? It is tragic that our law will have so little regard for unborn babies and do so little to protect women through pregnancy. I fear future generations will look back on this day and be astonished and appalled by our approach to life at its very beginning.”