A Sunday Times columnist has decried the rushed way abortion decriminalisation has progressed through Parliament.
Camilla Long, who is pro-abortion, said it was “incredible” that an issue so significant was “tacked onto” an existing Bill. The addition to the Crime and Policing Bill of a clause to decriminalise a mother for killing her unborn baby at any stage of pregnancy was given just two hours of debate in the Commons. Last week, it was debated in one evening in the Lords, starting late in the night.
Voting continued past midnight as various other amendments were debated and voted on. One would have made it a criminal offence to obtain abortifacients by false representation, but this was defeated, as was an amendment to reintroduce in-person consultations to access the abortion pills. Later, a pro-abortion amendment to delete all past criminal convictions under abortion law was passed by 180 to 58.
‘The worst thing’
Long wrote: “One of the incredible things about this Bill seems to me how little interest there is in it overall”.
She added: “The government’s position is: get it done, we don’t want the assisted dying debacle. Which is fine — except what we’re debating isn’t small businesses or bins. It is the worst thing that can happen in life.”
The journalist stated: “Whatever you think of abortion — and as it happens, I’m for it — almost no one agrees it is fine to abort healthy late-stage foetuses.
“That there will be an increase in women doing this isn’t even disputed. It is already in the data. There has been a near threefold rise in the number of people being prosecuted for illegal late-stage abortions since the last government made another significant change: making its Covid-era ‘pills by post’ scheme permanent.”
Anti-feminist
Long warned that soon: “We will be told it is ‘cruel’ to let women carry out an abortion on their own. The state will be prevailed upon to help them do it, decriminalising drugs, doctors. Again, this isn’t even being discussed.”
She described the idea that women should be spared any and every possible inconvenience in life as “almost sociopathic”, and rejected the idea that abortion decriminalisation is feminist.
Long explained: “being a feminist means defending women. But surely not to the point you think it is absolutely fine to kill viable babies?”
She noted recent cases where fathers have been sentenced to long prison sentences for inducing abortions, yet after this Bill becomes law, the mother doing the same would not face any legal repercussions: “Many won’t feel the cases are comparable, but having such a huge disparity is evidence of an irrational position.”
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