Image: Wikimedia Commons
The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has promised to act after it emerged on Sunday 11th October that the Scottish National Party (SNP) had cancelled a planned fringe event, organised by the Society, at the SNP’s upcoming Party conference. The event was due to highlight the reality of coerced abortion in Scotland, and to call for specific legal protections pertaining to coerced abortion.
Titled, No Law to Protect Her: The Reality of Coerced Abortion, the event planned to shed light on the fact that there is no specific criminal offence for men who coerce women into having abortions. It is notable – given the topic in question and the SNP’s cancellation of the event – that the expert panel SPUC put on to speak was to be comprised of women.
The furore appeared to start on Saturday 10th October when the members of a group, called “Young Scots for Independence”, voted unanimously in favour of an emergency motion condemning SPUC’s presence at the SNP Conference. In their words:
“Conference…unequivocally condemns the decision to grant SPUC a fringe event at the SNP’s Annual National Conference, and calls upon the party and conference organisers to immediately reconsider and reverse this decision.”
On Sunday 11th October, a group called “Women for Independence”, alerted SNP members online to SPUC’s presence at the Conference, even getting 200 people to sign their petition calling for the event to be cancelled. At least two SNP MSPs, Emma Roddick and Karen Adam, signalled their support for the petition via their Instagram profiles. The very same day, the SNP then decided to cancel the fringe event.
SPUC is now seeking legal advice, believing the decision of the SNP to cancel the fringe event to constitute a breach of the Equality Act. Responding to the cancellation, SPUC’s Executive Director, Michael Robinson, laid out a challenge for First Minister, John Swinney:
“Our fringe event was on the subject of coerced abortion as we believe that no woman in Scotland should be coerced or pressured into having an abortion. The First Minister must now categorically state his views on this important issue: does he agree with SPUC that Scottish women should be legally protected from coerced abortion, if so why has he allowed a panel of expert women to be cancelled from his conference? Or is it the position of the SNP that women should not have specific coerced abortion legal protections?”
Continuing, Mr Robinson gave a damning verdict on the state of the SNP:
“Preventing debate and discussion and cancelling valid viewpoints are behaviours associated with totalitarian regimes around the world, the rule of the mob has replaced the rule of law within the SNP.”
The decision to cancel SPUC’s fringe event comes soon after the SNP’s decision to drop a radical “abortion up to birth” motion from their conference agenda, which was welcomed by the Society.
As well as pursuing legal advice, SPUC is also considering how else to respond to the SNP’s cancellation.
To read our Press Release in full, click here.
