Babies in Britain are threatened by the most extreme extension to our abortion laws since the Abortion Act was introduced in 1967.
A proposal by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi to decriminalise home abortions would make it more likely that healthy babies are aborted at home for any reason, including sex-selective purposes, up to birth.
The change is being pushed despite widespread public opposition. Polling undertaken by ComRes shows that only 1% of women support introducing abortion up to birth and that 91% of women agree that sex-selective abortion should be explicitly banned by the law.
Arguing against the plan, pro-life MPs have pointed out that it would remove offences that make it illegal for a woman to perform her own abortion at any point right through to birth. The changes to the law would apply throughout all nine months of pregnancy and would not exclude sex-selective abortions.
This would be the biggest change to abortion legislation since the Abortion Act was introduced in 1967.
DUP MP Jim Shannon said “Depending on the model of decriminalisation, the effect could be wide enough to include de facto access to abortion for women up to the point of birth for any reason. There would, for example, be no enforceable prohibition on abortion on the basis of the sex of the unborn baby that would have criminal repercussions”.
Sir Edward Leigh warned that removing abortion from the criminal law de facto makes it possible to have an abortion at home up to birth
“One of the justifications for the Abortion Act 1967 was that it would end back-street abortions; indeed, whether we like it or not, we have abortion on demand in safe environments. If the proposals we are discussing go ahead and, de facto, it becomes possible to have an abortion at home up to birth, does he not think that could endanger women’s health? Is he not worried about that, or are the movers of the petition not worried about that?”.