Two prominent members of the House of Lords, Baroness Monckton and Baroness Stroud, have announced amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill that would undo the radical change to abortion law voted on in June, whilst restoring a key safeguard for women.
They seek to overturn a clause that would make it legal for women to perform their own abortions for any reason, even up to the moment of birth, and to ensure that no abortion takes place at home without an in-person consultation with a medical professional.
Clause 191 was added to the Bill by Welsh Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi after less than an hour of debate in the Commons. It bypassed the usual detailed scrutiny such a significant change would receive if proposed as a standalone bill. If enacted, it would remove the legal repercussions for a woman performing an abortion (even on herself) for any reason, including sex selection, right up to birth. Such a shift would mark the most dramatic change to abortion law in Britain since 1967 and would likely lead to more late-term abortions taking place at home in unsafe and distressing circumstances.
Baroness Monckton’s amendment would remove this clause, arguing that this kind of far-reaching change should not be rushed through Parliament without proper debate, consultation, or consideration of its consequences.
Speaking on the dangers of this amendment, one Tory peer, Baroness Spielman, warned “not all women are angels without agency”, biting back at the comments by Antoniazzi saying that women do not have late term abortions (but if they do they deserve sympathy). Like with the debate on assisted suicide, it’s heartening to see the House of Lords being proactive in their legislative role to protect against dangerous laws.
Baroness Stroud is leading a separate amendment aimed at reinstating mandatory in-person consultations before abortion pills are prescribed for use at home. The current “pills by post” system, introduced during the pandemic and later made permanent, allows abortion pills to be sent through the post following only a remote consultation. This means that the gestational age of the baby is often self-reported, leaving room for serious mistakes or deliberate misinformation.
Baroness Stroud and others warned of the risks when the scheme began, and those warnings have been justified. Women have been placed at risk by taking abortion pills far later in pregnancy than is legally permitted, and some have even been coerced into abortions without their knowledge or consent – the abortion lobby has introduced the backstreet abortions they screech so often about.
The most notable case of the failure of pills-by-post involved Carla Foster, who took abortion pills at 34 weeks after lying about her gestational age. Had she been examined in person, medical professionals would have known the true stage of her pregnancy and her baby, Lily, would have lived. Another case saw a Norfolk man, Stuart Worby, convicted for secretly administering abortion pills to destroy his baby without his girlfriend’s consent.
Evidence shows that late-term abortions are significantly more dangerous than early ones and that complications increase dramatically when medical supervision is absent. Government data indicates that the complication rate for abortions beyond 20 weeks in clinical settings is over 160 times higher than for those before 10 weeks. It is likely to be even higher when women self-administer abortion pills at home later in pregnancy. Emergency services have reported a sharp rise in call-outs from women experiencing complications after taking abortion pills, and 1 in 17 requires hospital treatment.
Supporters of Baroness Stroud’s amendment argue that reinstating in-person consultations is a proportionate and necessary step that would improve the safety of women and late-term babies. It is worth noting, women would still be able to take both pills at home, but only after a medical professional has confirmed gestational age, assessed health risks, and identified any signs of coercion.
The amendments proposed by Baroness Monckton and Baroness Stroud are more than technical corrections. They represent an attempt to protect women’s health, uphold responsible law-making, and preserve the principle that the life of an unborn child deserves recognition in the legislative process.
As the House of Lords prepares to debate these amendments, SPUC sits with bated breath, knowing that the outcome of this process will determine whether the UK stays riding the landslide towards death or starts to turn back the clock on our evil abortion laws.
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