Unborn babies in England and Wales face the gravest danger since abotion was legalised back in 1967. An Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi (pictured) has tabled an amendment to a Government Bill that would change the law so it would no longer be illegal for women to perform their own abortions for any reason, and at any point up to and during birth.
The amendment (NC1), tabled to the Crime and Policing Bill, would likely lead to a significant increase in the number of women performing late-term abortions at home, endangering the lives of many more women.
The proposed change to the law would also lead to an increased number of viable babies’ lives being ended well beyond the 24-week abortion time limit and beyond the point at which they would be able to survive outside the womb.
Antoniazzi’s amendment does not outline circumstances in which it would continue to be an offence for a woman to perform her own abortion – the changes to the law would apply throughout all nine months of pregnancy and would not exclude sex-selective abortions.
By amending the abortion law in this way, self-abortions will, de facto, become possible up to birth for any reason including abortions for sex-selective purposes, as women could mislead abortion providers about their gestational age (as in the case of Carla Foster, who pretended to be 7 weeks pregnant but took pills at 32-34 weeks gestation).
Sex-selective abortion usually targets baby girls due to a preference among certain parents and some cultures for having sons.
The Government maintains that, under our current legislation, abortion on the grounds of the sex of the baby is illegal because it is “not one of the lawful grounds for termination of pregnancy” set out in the Abortion Act (which stipulates that abortion can only be performed under specific grounds).
However, since the amendment does not outline circumstances in which it would continue to be an offence for a woman to perform her own abortion, the changes to the law would not exclude sex-selective abortions.
Polling undertaken by ComRes, which has undertaken polls for the BBC, ITV, The Independent and Sky News, shows that only 1% of women support introducing abortion up to birth and 70% of women would support a reduction in the time limit from 24 weeks to 20 weeks or below. 91% of women also oppose sex-selective abortion.
The same polling showed 60% of both Conservative and Labour voters supported a reduction in the time limit to 20 weeks or below. 65% of Liberal Democrat voters were in favour of a reduction in the abortion time limit to 20 weeks or below. Significantly, among those with children aged 18 or under in their household, 69% supported reducing the abortion limit to 20 weeks gestation or below.
The polling also showed that 89% of the general population oppose sex-selective abortion.
Polling published by the Daily Telegraph shows that more than half of the general public agree that it should remain the case that a woman is breaking the law if she has an abortion of a healthy baby after the current 24-week legal time limit up until birth. Only 16% disagreed.
A separate poll from Ipsos released in August 2023 shows that only 36% of the British population think abortion should be legal during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. This is a significant decrease in support for abortion up to 20 weeks from the previous year, conducted by the same polling organisation, where 40% of people in Great Britain thought abortion should be legal in the first 20 weeks