It’s been a tough few days in UK politics. Let me be upfront about this. This amendment passed in the House of Commons is down right evil! It is corrupt and destructive. The amendment passed while I was away on holiday, during which I’ve had my time to gather my thoughts.
To summarise, the UK Parliament has voted to decriminalize abortion in England and Wales, ending the prosecution of women who terminate their own pregnancies under the Victorian-era Offences Against the Person Act 1861, even beyond the current 24-week legal limit. It passed by 379 to 137 votes.
I feel that there are moral and ethical consideration which, I feel, have been neglected on this issue - especially in comparison to the vote on assisted suicide. There are MP’s who, rightly so, voted against the assisted suicide bill (for lack of safeguards and other reasons) yet were openly in favour of the abortion amendment.
This makes literally zero sense to me. Are infant lives not as valuable as those of the elderly and seriously ill? Clearly not. How can you be openly in favour of one but against the other?
But the sad reality of this speaks truth into the current debate on abortion. Many people do not put the value of a young life (an infant baby in the womb) on the same footing as a newborn baby to the elderly on their deathbed.
People were so devastated by the news of what Lucy Letby murdering babies (using methods such as poisoning with insulin and injecting air into their bloodstream), yet turn a blind eye to late-term abortion, framing it as “women’s rights”. Let’s be clear, the end result is the same. Both ended in innocent lives being lost.
With this new amendment, women will no longer face prosecution for aborting a baby after 24-weeks. Let that sink in. A woman can commit a home abortion up to birth and not face prosecution. If I end the life of an hour-old baby, it is murder, however, if I terminated it an hour or two before, that is okay. This is pure evil.
Here are a few of my thought as they stand currently.
Firstly, this could put vulnerable women at risk. This is overlooked in my view. I understand that the amendment is designed in a way to help those seek medical attention and clinical advice rather than pushing women down the criminal route but, I feel that it just opens up the opportunity to take matters in your own hands with little guidance or reflection.
Secondly, abortion is not about “rights”. Part of the issue is that the topic of abortion if framed as a “human right” or “reproductive freedom” in an attempt to try and normalise the issue and make it sound like an essential. A human right, by definition, are rules which allow humans to flourish. The UN defines human rights as…
… rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.
They key here is “right to life”. If you believe, as I do, that life begins at conception, then surly the baby has rights which are equal to the mother? Shouldn’t those rights also extend to the unborn as well? After all, they too are human, are they not?
Thirdly, the amendment was rushed through with little time for debate. Given the scale and significance of such an amendment, surly this would have been thoroughly scrutinised? Nope! From my understanding, there were no more than 100 MPs who sat through the two-hour debate on the basic principle of abortion access. Shocking. Much like the assisted suicide bill, governance by the back door is very much the trend of this Labour government.
If you want another take, feel free to check out David Robertson’s post for his view. He makes an even stronger case against it too.