A move to decriminalise abortion up to birth in England and Wales risks licensing something akin to infanticide, an ardent ‘pro-choice’ journalist has warned.
Times columnist Janice Turner confessed that despite having written in support of abortion for decades, she finds a plan to decriminalise women killing their unborn babies at any stage of pregnancy ‘troubling’.
Labour MP Dame Diana Johnson has tabled an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill which would allow a woman to take abortion pills even when the baby is full term without risk of sanction.
Poisons by post
Turner believes that the recently introduced ‘pills by post’ system has “transformed access to safe, early abortion”.
I find it discomforting that a woman could abort a full-term baby and face no sanctions
However, she expressed disquiet that under Johnson’s proposal a woman experiencing a normal pregnancy could, at 38 weeks, “buy pills online and end her own pregnancy (at grave risk) without breaking the law”.
The columnist explained: “Everyone draws the line somewhere about where life begins.”
“My line is this: I find it discomforting that a woman could abort a full-term baby and face no sanctions. If it is inside the birth canal she can legally administer abortifacient poisons: outside the birth canal she has committed infanticide.”
Attempted hijack
She continued: “If we believe this was no crime at all, aren’t we infantilising women, saying they are only victims, can never have agency or responsibility for their actions?”
Christian MPs Miriam Cates and Nick Fletcher have severely criticised Johnson’s attempt to hijack the Government’s Criminal Justice Bill to decriminalise abortion.
Mrs Cates described making it lawful for a women to abort her baby up to birth as a matter of personal choice “morally wrong”, and Mr Fletcher said any such law had no place “in a civilised society”.
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