The criminal Justice Bill will shortly return to the Commons for its report stage.
The difficulty for any government bill is that, as far as its scope permits, it may become a ‘Trojan Horse’ attracting amendments that it was never the Government’s intention to include when the bill was originally drafted.
The current bill was never intended to be an Abortion bill, but New Clause 1 at report may well make it so.
This clause would make it lawful for a woman to end her own pregnancy at any stage right up until birth. Clinicians, pregnancy services and any healthcare settings however, would remain bound by our present abortion laws which currently restrict terminations to within 24 weeks of pregnancy (except where specific exceptions apply). Given that 40% of abortions now take place at home with self-administration of what is referred to as ‘telemedicine’, the measure would introduce a two-tier system whereby a woman, acting on her own, can lawfully dispose of her unborn child right up until just before it would actually be born.
Personally, I find the prospect grotesque. I am not alone: Current polling indicates that only 1% of women support abortion up to birth. On the contrary, 70% actually support a reduction in the lawful time limit from the current 24 weeks.
Those who demand absolute rights over their own bodies, neglect the fact that, where abortion is concerned, two bodies, two lives, are involved.
Given that this ‘Pandora’s box’ has been opened in New Clause 1 of this bill, those of us who have deep misgivings about the permissive nature of the current law will make our own attempts at amendments. We will seek to reduce the permitted 24-week window to a more realistic level in line with modern medicine’s ability to sustain life outside the womb, and we will seek to end the discrimination against Downs babies which currently allows them to be aborted up to 40 weeks.