Inset image – Wikimedia Commons: Official portrait of Tonia Antoniazzi
A new poll commissioned by SPUC has found that most of the British public still believe in upholding legal protections for unborn children and their mothers. The finding comes ahead of votes on two amendments that would, if passed, decriminalise abortion up to birth.
A poll commissioned by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) sampled the opinions of 2,000 people.
67 per cent of respondents agreed with the poll statement that “Abortion is a matter of life and death, and it is therefore appropriate that the criminal law provides a clear boundary to protect everyone involved.” Just 14 per cent disagreed.
The same poll found that most of the public is unaware of the extent of abortion in the UK. Roughly a third of people think that there are less than 50,000 abortions each year, and half of respondents think there are less than 100,000.
There are over a quarter of a million abortions in Britain every year. In England and Wales, there were 252,122 abortions in 2022. In that same year, there were 16,584 abortions in Scotland. In Northern Ireland, there were around 2,000.
With abortion increasing to unprecedented levels every year in the UK, the death toll could now be closer to 300,000.
Michael Robinson, Executive Director at SPUC, said that the poll “clearly shows that the British public doesn’t support abortion on demand and rejects the deeply flawed arguments from the abortion lobby that it should be removed from the criminal law.”
The SPUC poll comes ahead of votes on two abortion decriminalisation amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill, set to take place on 17 and 18 June.
MP Tonia Antoniazzi’s NC1 amendment seeks to 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.
NC20, tabled by MP Stella Creasy, would remove offences in the Abortion Act, 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.
Mr Robinson continued: “While believing that the law should be rarely applied, the public recognises that criminal sanction should be applied in some cases and wants the law extended to cover those abortion providers who act in a reckless fashion endangering the lives of mothers and their babies…
“Those peddling abortion on demand and without consequences are out of step with public opinion and I would urge MPs to reject these amendments and instead look at ways to extend criminal responsibility to those providers who recklessly endanger the health and lives of vulnerable women.”
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