Scottish MPs push to follow England and Wales in liberalising abortion law

Scottish MPs have called for Scotland to follow England and Wales’s example by bringing in an even more liberal abortion law.

Katrina Murray, Labour MP for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch, called Scotland’s abortion law “outdated” and said that it “must change”. She was supported by party colleagues Lillian Jones and Joani Reid.

Last month, MPs approved Tonia Antoniazzi’s amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to allow a woman in England and Wales to kill her unborn baby at any stage of pregnancy without sanction, by 379 votes to 137. They also rejected a proposal to reinstate in-person consultations under the pills-by-post scheme.

Unwanted

Murray said that following the vote in Westminster, “Scotland now stands as the only nation in the UK that has not moved to remove abortion from the criminal law. That must change”.

Explaining the current process, she noted: “all abortions still require two doctors’ signatures, and women must meet specific legal criteria to qualify for an abortion”.

She complained that “simply not wanting to be pregnant” at any stage in pregnancy “is not a valid reason to have an abortion” under the law as it stands.

An expert group to review the law on abortion has been assembled by the Scottish Government. They are expected to publish proposals advising whether the law should be changed later this summer.

A human life

Commenting on the recent vote in Westminster, columnist Janice Turner, who describes herself as an advocate of ‘reproductive rights’, expressed shock at the “glib, careless and amoral plan” that would “allow a woman to self-terminate a pregnancy up until the moment of birth without facing prosecution”.

While she did not support the prosecution of all illegal abortions, she said the current pills-by-post scheme is “open to abuse and error”, and rejected the notion that a “woman should be free to self-administer abortifacients up until birth, in any circumstance, with no legal sanction”.

“It cannot be that killing a full-term baby in the birth canal is legal, but smothering it outside the womb is infanticide.” She added: “a foetus at 37 weeks gestation is still a human life”.

The Christian Institute’s Director Ciarán Kelly called Parliament’s decision “deplorable”, saying: “They have done so with little or no regard for the welfare of expectant mothers. DIY abortions, at home, late in pregnancy, dramatically increase the likelihood of complications endangering women’s health.”