Image – Unsplash: Benjamin Voros
The recent announcement by the government that they intend to amend the Employment Rights Bill to give parents the legal right to take time off work to grieve if they experience pregnancy loss at any stage, would extend statutory bereavement leave to parents who experience miscarriage at any stage of pregnancy, including before 24 weeks.
Currently, bereavement leave is only available to parents who lose an unborn child after 24 weeks of pregnancy. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said the change will give “people time away from work to grieve” and added “No one who is going through the heartbreak of pregnancy loss should have to go back to work before they are ready”.
Parents can currently claim up to a fortnight’s leave if they suffer pregnancy loss after 24 weeks, or if a child younger than 18 dies.
While the proposal does represent a recognition of the profound grief that many women and families endure after pregnancy loss it is also glaringly and utterly inconsistent with current abortion law. It is staggeringly hypocritical for society to acknowledge the emotional devastation caused by miscarriage before 24 weeks, while continuing to legally permit abortion up to exactly the same gestational age.
The core question is this: how can the loss of a child at 20 or 23 weeks be considered worthy of formal bereavement leave, while at the same time, a child of identical gestational development can be intentionally aborted without legal or moral concern?
This contradiction reveals a philosophical incoherence. If the unborn child is acknowledged as a real and grievable loss in cases of miscarriage – something worthy of workplace leave, social support, and formal recognition – then that same life must also hold intrinsic value in all circumstances, not only when its loss is unintentional.
Grief does not derive solely from the desires of the parents. It flows from the reality of what has been lost: a developing, living human being. The scientific reality is that by 12 weeks, the unborn child has fingers, toes, organs, and brain activity. By 20 weeks, many babies respond to stimuli and are approaching viability with medical support. To grieve this child in one context and terminate it in another is a deep moral inconsistency.
The extension of bereavement leave implicitly reinforces what pro-life advocates have long argued: that life in the womb matters – not simply because a mother “wanted” the baby, but because that baby existed and had value. If a miscarriage at 10 weeks brings legitimate sorrow, how can society condone the elective abortion of a baby at 22 weeks?
SPUC calls for ethical consistency. Either we acknowledge the unborn child as a human life worthy of mourning and protection, or we risk reducing human value to the circumstances of conception and personal choice. Bereavement leave legislation, while compassionate, unintentionally exposes the moral inconsistency in our current abortion legislation.
If you’re reading this and haven’t yet donated to SPUC, please consider helping now. Thank You!
