Image – Unsplash: James Newcombe
Two abortion decriminalisation amendments are set to be debated and voted on by MPs on 17 and 18 June. SPUC has slammed both amendments as the greatest threat to unborn children and their mothers since the Abortion Act.
The Report Stage of the government’s Crime and Policing Bill will take place on Tuesday 17th June and Wednesday 18th June.
Two abortion decriminalization clauses, if selected, will be debated and voted on by Westminster MPs on those days.
MP Tonia Antoniazzi’s NC1 would decriminalise abortion by removing women from the criminal law related to abortion. This would mean that a woman who induced her abortion at home using pills (or any other method) at any stage of pregnancy, including just before natural birth, would not commit a crime.
Another new clause (NC20), tabled by MP Stella Creasy, also seeks to decriminalise abortion by adopting wholesale the recommendations of a non-binding UN committee.
Under NC20, offences in the Abortion Act would be removed, meaning that abortion could be carried out for any reason, including the sex of the baby. There would also be no way to bring an abusive partner who causes the death of an unborn baby to justice.
SPUC is urging its supporters and all other concerned citizens not wanting to see abortion up to birth to lobby their MP and ask them to oppose and vote against new clauses 1 and 20 to the Crime and Policing Bill.
More information on the amendments and how to oppose them can be found here. Briefings on NC1 and NC20 can be found here, and here, respectively.
Days 1 and 2 of the Report Stage also come on the same week when MP Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill will be subject to a decisive vote, on Friday 20th June.
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