- Committee (14th Day) (Continued)
- 8:23 pm
- Clause 191: Removal of women from the criminal law related to abortion
- Debate on Amendment 3 resumed.
- My Lords, the Committee may be pleased to know that I plan to be comparatively brief.Before the dinner break, the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, asked how many people in your Lordships’ House have had abortions. Of course I cannot answer that question, but it is worth putting on the record the fact that one in three British women will have an abortion during their reproductive life. That is the reality for very many women in the UK today. They will need this reproductive healthcare.I will not go over what has been said before, but I want to respond to some of the things that have already been said that need a response, and I will raise a point that has not been raised but which is important for contextualising our debate. It relates to a comment made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, about why we have seen an increase in investigations into what are often entirely natural miscarriages and late-term apparent or possible abortions. We have not discussed how the global political context has changed. There is an extremely well-funded global campaign around the world that is seeking to reduce women’s reproductive rights. For context on that, I went to the website of the Organization of American Historians and read an article by the historian Jennifer L Holland. She notes that,“the antiabortion movement, in its many iterations, has radically transformed Americans’ ideas about women’s bodies, reproduction, feminist politics, and of course, fetal life. In the two centuries the movement has existed, its constituencies, tactics, and tools have all changed. But what has remained is the effect this movement has had on women’s lives”.She adds that the movement“transformed ideas as it also restricted the … ability of American women to access reproductive healthcare”.The article goes on to note that, until around the 1840s, having an abortion in America was an unexceptional and “largely stigma-free” practice. That was because it had inherited the law from the UK that regarded anything before quickening as not being an issue; that is usually regarded as four to six months of gestation.There is a reason why the law that we keep referring back to is from the 1860s. That was when we started to see a global movement, particularly an American-driven movement, which is now here in the UK, through very well-funded organisations and with millions of pounds coming from the US, through the huge power of social media, having an impact on whether people will think about these issues—whether they are a medical practitioner, police officer, et cetera. When we look at why we have seen an increase, we really have to consider the framework in which this debate is being conducted.A long time ago now, the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, who is not in his place, said that
- I hear what the noble Baroness is saying. Is she aware that the World Health Organization defines a safe abortion as“meaning that they are carried out using a method recommended by WHO, appropriate to the gestational age, and by someone with the necessary skills”,and that recommendation 30 in its safe abortion guide states that medical abortion at 12 weeks or greater should be managed only by doctors in a healthcare setting—in other words, a self-managed medical abortion from 12 weeks’ gestation is deemed to be “unsafe” by the WHO?
- The noble Lord has very powerfully made the case for ensuring that we are able to make that provision as early as possible.I particularly want to address one amendment that we have only really heard the presenter address. Amendment 461B from the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, would subject any female accessing legal abortion under the age of 16 to a mandatory investigation by police and child protection agencies. It is worth stressing that since 1985 it has been the law in England and Wales that under-16s can access contraception, abortion and sexual health care confidentially.
- 8:30 pm
- The amendment would remove this long-standing law from any girl who presents for an abortion. It would harm girls needing abortion care, dissuading them from contacting formal healthcare providers to avoid being reported to the police, and instead pushing them towards unregulated abortion providers. It would make abortion for girls harder to access, with professionals opting out of provision because of the increased legal risks. Evidence of sexual activity related to children under 13 is already reported to the police and child protection agencies as standard practice, and safeguarding is a core component of abortion care.
- I want to come to one final remark, and this builds on the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, who talked about the briefing that I am sure most noble Lords have received from some 40-plus organisations that says that Clause 191 should remain in the Bill and possibly be strengthened by the two amendments that would improve it.
- The noble Baroness referred to the fact that this briefing is backed by royal colleges, including those for obstetricians and gynaecologists, midwives, nursing and general practitioners. But it is worth looking at some of the other organisations that back Clause 191. The TUC, the University and College Union, UNISON and the RMT are organisations that represent many of the working women in our society.
- There has also been a lot of reference to minoritised communities. This briefing is also backed by Southall Black Sisters; Roshni, which supports Black and minoritised communities affected by domestic abuse; and Imkaan, a national feminist umbrella organisation dedicated to dealing with violence against Black and minoritised women and girls.
- What we have here is a huge number of the organisations that know, represent and see every day the women whom Clause 191 could protect, saying, “Please keep Clause 191 in the Bill”.
- My Lords, first, I ought to say how I approach this debate. I had not intended to speak. The issue—passionate though people feel about it on both sides of the argument—is one that I hope I have always approached with an open mind. Abortion is a terrible thing in contemplation for anybody concerned, but it is a practical necessity for some. That is something that I have always felt strongly about.One of the things that we could have been confused about in hearing the debate today is that the police are investigating every stillbirth and every miscarriage, which is not the case. If the death takes place or the child’s life is lost in a medical setting, usually the police are never involved. The time when the police become involved is either when there is a medical referral because there is a concern by medics or, alternatively, when there is an emergency at home or somewhere else.I mention this because we have to be realistic, whatever the decisions made about Clause 191, about how the police respond. There are some ways the police response could be improved, but we have to give some understanding to the officers who deal with these emergencies, say, in a home or at a place of work. It could be a public toilet, or it could be that something is discovered in the middle of a field. At the beginning, the officers do not know whether they are dealing with a baby, a late-term foetus or a child who might have taken a breath or not; they have a very confused situation, and they cannot just walk away from it.My first point is that there has to be some sensitivity. At a far earlier stage in the debate, I think the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, raised sudden death syndrome for babies. The police have got far better at dealing with that sort of situation, because 30 years ago we did not know that sudden death syndrome happened. Now we do, so it is dealt with in a different way from how it was 20 or 30 years ago.
- My Lords, for the benefit of the absent noble Lord, Lord Russell, I will attempt to speak in a paperless fashion, which means that if I engage in verbal streams of consciousness I hope that the Committee will forgive me. There is a range of amendments in this group, many of which I support, a number of which I have sympathy with and a few that I oppose. That is perhaps natural, given the fact that a number of amendments in this group pull in completely opposite directions.Of the amendments that I support, I draw particular attention to Amendment 460, which would require that before an abortion could take place there is at least a clinical appointment, that guidance is given and that it is done through that route. Noble Lords have come up with a range of solutions to what we all appreciate is a sensitive situation and have tried to square the circle. The evidence from prosecutions that have taken place, and where there have been convictions, is that in almost every case there has been an absence of clinical support and someone has, in effect, gone on a form of solo run. Albeit that it may well have been in very difficult circumstances and taken with a heavy heart, nevertheless that is the route down which they have gone.In the limited time available, I will concentrate on supporting the Clause 191 stand part notice from the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, because, with respect to those who drafted Clause 191, it is somewhat disingenuous, radical in its implications and dangerous, particularly for women. Let me explain why.Mention has been made that it does not legally change the time limits. In a strict legal sense, that is true, but it does turn those time limits into a façade. If you have a situation in which an act that remains illegal can be carried out but the person who carries it out is immune and protected from prosecution in all circumstances—in blanket circumstances—you have a law that is utterly ineffective. It is the equivalent of saying that we will retain speed limits on motorways but anyone found driving on a motorway beyond that speed limit will not be prosecuted. It is somewhat disingenuous. A more honest approach would have been an amendment that simply said, “We want to move the time limit to the point of birth”. That is, in effect, what Clause 191 does, but the changes that it makes are disguised as the mirage that has been put in front of us.
- 8:45 pm
- I have no doubt that my views on abortion would be in a minority throughout the UK. But it is also the case—we have had statistics cited from various surveys—that only 16% believe that it should not be a criminal offence if it is beyond the time limits and only 1% of the public support abortion up to birth. So this is a very radical solution. It is a very radical change compared with other jurisdictions. Within virtually every country in Europe, abortion is now legal. But for the bulk of those countries, the time limits, generally speaking, are between 12 and 14 weeks. The only country that has as high a limit as ours is the Netherlands, which in certain circumstances can go to 24 weeks. This would make us very much the outlier within Europe. I think that is of grave concern to people.
- On the radical nature, this will be the most significant change to the 1967 Act in practical terms that has been proposed in the last 59 years. We are not bringing this into line with Northern Ireland. As noble Baroness, Lady Foster, and others have pointed out, the option of telemedicine is not available in Northern Ireland. Anything in Northern Ireland at least goes through the route compatible with Amendment 460, which is the clinical route. We are not comparing like with like if Clause 191 was to go through.
- Finally—this has been addressed on a number of occasions by other Peers, so I will not go into the details —I think that this is quite dangerous. It increases the opportunities for coercion of women in late-term pregnancy. At the very least, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, indicated, it increases the risk of sex-based abortion. We have seen what has happened in Australia and Canada where this has been the case and that is something we have to be very scared of. It is somewhat regressive of society if we move to a point where we say that, in some cases, a girl’s life is not worth the same as a baby boy’s life. That smacks of the eugenics of the late 19th century or early 20th century. We need to take a firm line on the issue of sex-based abortion.