Miscarriage bereavement leave but legalised backstreet abortions?

COMMENT

The Government is set to amend its Employment Rights Bill to allow mothers a week’s unpaid bereavement leave if they lose their unborn baby before 24 weeks.

Mothers who experience the devastation of miscarriage are already entitled to two weeks of paid leave if their baby was beyond the 24-week ‘viability threshold’. For those who suffer the loss of a child a little earlier, there is nothing.

Understandably, many end up taking sick leave, but as Sarah Owen MP, Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, said: “Nobody says ‘get well soon’ once you’ve had a miscarriage, they say ‘I’m really sorry for your loss’.”

I am asking us … to recognise humanity for every baby lost from 20 weeks onwards.

A similar move is underway in the House of Lords. There, Baroness Benjamin is seeking to amend the definition of stillbirth, so that it applies to babies lost after 20 rather than 24 weeks, thereby granting more mothers access to maternity care and bereavement leave.

Lady Benjamin told her fellow Peers: “I am asking us to redefine compassion, to recognise humanity for every baby lost from 20 weeks onwards.”

Both moves are welcome, and a long overdue recognition that unborn babies are human beings too, irrespective of the arbitrary 24-week threshold. We saw the same kind of positive step 16 months ago when the Government allowed women who have lost a child before 24 weeks to receive a baby loss certificate.

The return of backstreet abortions?

Sadly, these acts of compassion stand in stark contrast to the staggeringly callous vote by MPs last month to allow women to kill their unborn children at any stage of pregnancy, even just days from birth, without sanction. There have been accusations that those who raise this prospect are simply scaremongering; that women would never do this.

But the fact is, it has already happened. Nicola Packer was around 26 weeks pregnant when she took the pills to induce an abortion, but she was acquitted by a jury of knowingly taking abortion pills beyond the 10-week limit. And Carla Foster was initially jailed for two years after she took abortion pills around 32-34 weeks into her pregnancy, but later had her sentence reduced to 14 months suspended.

Temporary rules allowing women to take both abortion pills at home without seeing a doctor were introduced at the start of the covid pandemic, and made permanent in 2022. Inevitably, some women obtained and used the pills unlawfully, and activists were quick to complain if they were investigated. Now that the House of Commons has removed even the prospect of lawbreakers being looked into, there is no chance of justice for the baby whose life is ended by its mother.

There can be severe complications with abortion pills – particularly if taken later in pregnancy – including haemorrhaging and excruciating pain, which are exacerbated by lack of medical supervision. We ought to be deeply troubled at the prospect of women late on in pregnancy resorting to even more dangerous methods of killing their baby.

A doctor cannot lawfully provide an abortion to a woman after the limit because medics will still be subject to criminal sanctions if they participate. But a woman who sees no problem with ending the life of a viable baby will likely have no problem seeking out a criminal prepared to do the unthinkable for the right price. In short, MPs effectively voted to encourage backstreet abortions.

Should Tonia Antoniazzi’s amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill be approved by the House of Lords and eventually become law, it is certain that more women will be admitted to hospital with dangerous abortion-related complications. Cases will arise of women suffering serious infection, internal haemorrhaging, or even dying as a result of DIY at-home abortions.

Pro-abortion activists, who are entirely to blame for knowingly creating this scenario, will no doubt then feign shock and outrage to try and decriminalise abortion completely, allowing doctors to perform abortions at any stage of gestation for any reason.

Made in the image of God

It seems in the eyes of some of our MPs, that a baby’s life only has value if it is wanted by the mother. It does not matter if the father or grandparents or even strangers would desperately want to raise it. It does not matter if the child could survive outside of the womb. Do we want a society where a baby is only allowed to live if the mother permits it?

As Christians, we know that God has created mankind in his image, and that each person, no matter their age, has intrinsic value. Every life is precious. So we can give thanks to God that the small step of granting bereavement leave for those who suffer miscarriage before 24 weeks recognises the humanity of life in the womb. But we must pray earnestly against the great evil of abortion, and that women and their babies would be protected.