Rather than having specific legislation to change abortion law, almost every crime bill which has come before Parliament over the last few years, has presented the opportunity to a dedicated group of enthusiasts, to use each such bill to try to amend abortion law. Hitherto they have largely been seen off….Until now.
The fundamental shift in the make up of the Commons that took place at the last election changed everything. Notwithstanding that abortion is a ‘conscience’ issue where the party whip is absent, all but four Conservatives voted against changing the law on Tuesday night. On that day, The Commons, by a majority of 242, made a major change to abortion law, without any of the procedural checks which normally precede such changes. There were no evidence hearings, nor any pre-legislative scrutiny of a draft bill, nor any sessions in a standing committee. Instead, just 46 minutes of a Back-Bench debate and a winding-up speech by a Minister (herself a previous leader of attempts to amend abortion law) who refused even to take interventions.
The consequence of the amendment is profound: it will no longer be illegal for a woman to carry out her own abortion at home, for any reason, at any gestation, up to birth.
It will remain a punishable criminal offence for any provider, clinician or other individual to assist her, but she is free of any criminal penalty when she does it herself. And in the days of ‘tele-medicine’ this will present little difficulty: Since the pandemic you can order medicine to abort a pregnancy over the telephone, without any face-to-face consultation and without any check to establish the length of gestation.
(An amendment to restore the pre-covid regime of face-to-face consultations with a doctor, before securing the abortion prescription was soundly defeated).
The debate centred on the rights of women to control their own bodies and the need to remove the prospect criminal penalty from vulnerable women.
But how many vulnerable women are coerced into abortions by controlling and abusive partners in the age of tele-medicine, unscrutinised by an appointment at the Doctor’s surgery?
Equally, the demand for absolute control of a woman over her own body, ignores the fact that, in pregnancy, there are two bodies that need to be considered. At what point in gestation does the child have rights too?
This key issue wasn’t even touched on in the short time that the debate lasted.
Profoundly shocking, was the great cheer of approval that went up when the vote was announced that the amendment had been carried.
“ Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not” Matthew 2,17-18