Pro-abortion MPs, Stella Creasy and Diana Johnson, have hijacked a Government Bill by tabling amendments that propose removing offenses that make it illegal to carry out a self-abortion at any point until birth.
Then debate on Tuesday at the Second Reading of the Government’s Criminal Justice Bill, Stella Creasy and Diana Johnson, presented their extreme amendments in the Government’s flagship Criminal Justice Bill.
Neither amendment outlines the circumstances in which self-abortion will continue to be an offense – the changes in the law will apply to the entire nine months of pregnancy and will not exclude sex-selective abortions.
Stella Creasy’s amendment, if it becomes law, would also repeal it Section 60 of the Offenses Against the Person Act, which is currently used to make it illegal to keep the body of a dead newborn baby, including in cases where the baby was killed by infanticide. Section 60 is also important in preventing individuals from obstructing an investigation into the cause of death of an infant when infanticide is suspected.
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These changes are likely to lead to an increase in the number of babies’ lives ended by late-term abortions performed at home, as well as many more women’s lives being put at risk.
There are no criminal penalties for abortion at any stage of pregnancy
Johnson’s amendment would ensure that there are no criminal penalties for a woman who has an abortion at any stage of pregnancy. However, by amending the abortion law in this way, self-abortion will, de facto, be possible until birth because women can mislead abortion providers about their gestational age (such as of the case by Carla Foster, pretending 7 weeks pregnant but taking pills at 32-34 weeks of pregnancy).
In such circumstances, neither the woman nor the abortion provider (who only needs to act on “good faith” and there is no need to verify the gestational age by personal appointment) may be responsible for a late-term abortion.
Before he tabled the amendment, during the debate on the Criminal Justice Bill, Johnson insist that his proposal “would not change any law about the provision of abortion services within a health care setting in England and Wales”. However, because the most abortions now take place away from a clinical settingwomen can take abortion pills at home at any stage of their pregnancy until birth without committing an offence.
Creasy amendment
to Stella Creasy amendment would have similar effects to Johnson’s but go beyond its requirement for repeal of Section 60 of the OAPA, which concern “[c]once the birth of a child’.
Section 60 is currently used to make it illegal to hide the body of a dead newborn baby, including in cases where the baby has been killed by infanticide. Section 60 is also important in preventing individuals from obstructing an investigation into the cause of a child’s death when infanticide is suspected.
MP admits DIY abortions could lead to increase in illegal abortions after 10 weeks of pregnancy
In their speeches on the Criminal Justice Bill, both MPs drew attention to the increasing incidence of illegal abortions since the introduction of DIY at-home abortion.
Johnson was enlightened reference to Carla Foster, who was charged after the British Pregnancy Advisory Service sent her abortion pills that led to the death of her baby, Lily22 weeks beyond the legal limit for home abortions.
However, this case would not have happened if baby Lily’s pregnancy had been accurately determined by ultrasound or a physical examination during a personal appointment. If this appointment takes place, the baby’s pregnancy is definitely determined and an abortion cannot take place.
When asked why there has been an increase in prosecutions for illegal abortions by Independent MP for Beckenham Bob Stewart, Creasy admitted that the legalization of abortions outside of a clinical setting was a possible reason.
He said: “I hope I can tell the hon. Gentleman what I think is the cause for sure. There are some pressures—perhaps a move toward telemedicine or a renewed interest in the issue…”
Conservative MP Maria Miller, while supporting decriminalization, asked whether the Criminal Justice Bill is “the right place to do that, when perhaps there is not enough time to go through all the details”.
Serious health concerns
Government data released last week show that self-performing a late-term medical abortion away from a clinical environment without personal medical supervision puts women’s lives at great risk.
The shows the data that a medical abortion performed at 20 weeks and above has a complication rate 160 times that of an abortion at less than 10 weeks. The complication rate is likely to be higher for women who perform their own abortions at home without medical supervision beyond the current 24-week time limit.
Right To Life UK spokeswoman Catherine Robinson said: “The obvious reason why there were so few prosecutions in the first 160 years following the legal ban on abortion established in the Offenses Against the Person Act (1861), but an increase in the last few years. , is due to the fact that more than half of all abortions now happens without any personal medical supervision”.
“In home abortions, because there is no mechanism to establish the pregnancy of the unborn baby, an unknown number of abortions now take place after the 10-week limit. The baby Lily case is the most high profile of these cases where a woman had an abortion at home without medical supervision at 32 weeks of pregnancy, and this is probably just the tip of the iceberg”.
“Unbelievably, even those who advocate change in the law acknowledge that the move to ‘telemedicine’ abortion – where there is no personal consultation with a medical professional – is a likely reason for the increase in prosecution”.
“The in-person abortion requirement that existed until 2020 acted as a safeguard to protect women and their babies not only from abortion becoming increasingly dangerous for women in later pregnancies, but also from the threat of coercion”.
“Instead of pushing for fewer safeguards through these changes, MPs who care about women and their babies should be calling for more oversight and protections, including an end to out-of-home abortion. a clinical setting.”
LifeNews Note: Republished with permission from Right to Life UK.
