Britain Now Allows Abortion Up to Birth for Any Reason – and the Public Don’t Care, By Joanna Gray
With news the House of Lords last night voted to allow abortion up to birth to be introduced into law, the general public must shoulder some responsibility. Baroness Monckton's amendment (424) to overturn abortion up to birth clause 208 was rejected by Peers who voted 185 to 148 against it; and Baroness Stroud's amendment (425) to reinstate in-person consultations with a medical professional prior to an abortion taking place at home was also rejected by Peers who voted 191 to 119 against it.
While defenders of the clause say they are only following the advice of abortion providers such as British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) in wishing to end the prosecution of vulnerable women, peers who voted it through are arguably not solely responsible. The banal sounding "Clause 208 of the Crime and Policing Bill" progressed to such dizzying legislative heights because the majority of the population, to paraphrase Mandelson, is intensely relaxed about the killing of unborn babies.
Yes, there are determined and vocal pro-life campaigners, but they are in the minority. As it stands today, public opinion, public activity and general social mores are firmly and solidly in the pro-abortion camp. I mentioned recently to a teenage girl that I was not instinctively keen on abortion. She screwed up her face and said: "God, that is SO cruel, what's wrong with you?"
According to British Social Attitudes (BSA) trends updated in late 2024, 76% of people believe a woman should be allowed an abortion simply because she does not wish to have a child (up from 37% in the 1980s). The abortion rate in over-35s almost doubled between 2013 and 2023 and over half of abortions are for existing mothers. In another win for the wisdom of lockdowns, the introduction of abortion pills by post now sees 72% of abortions being done at home. Since 2013 the proportion of abortions done by pill rather surgery has gone from 49% to 87%. Apart from the dead baby, what used to be a serious medical procedure has been 'sanitised'.
At a time when we are increasingly worrying about our low birth rate, it is worth remembering that there are approximately 250,000 abortions a year – around a third of all pregnancies, meaning there would be around 50% more live births if all were allowed continue. Latest figures report 277,970 abortions for residents of England and Wales in 2023, the highest number since the Abortion Act was introduced and an increase of 11% compared with 2022. A third of women will have a legal abortion at some point in their life.
I have not had an abortion but many women I know, love and respect, have. I do not consider them to be murderers, but there is something around the discussion of this issue that frightens me. That the issue of the termination of a viable human life has been reduced to "Clause 208 of the Crime and Policing Bill" is the classic sterile bureaucratisation of wrongdoing. House of Lords discussions of the issue focused for the most part on the "need for in person GP appointments, impact assessments, public consultations and informed consent". The gravity of not only what is being proposed but also what is already happening was generally avoided. The meagre two-and-a-half-hour debate was strange, rather like a group of inspectors tip-toeing across a corpse-filled battle field asking whether the 'appropriate risk assessments' had taken place.
When the usually admirable Baroness Fox talked about "that old chestnut" of human life starting from conception – when else would it start from? – she ably demonstrated the enormous shift that has taken place in recent decades concerning our general disenchantment with the miracle of life and the gravity of death.
The Archbishop of Canterbury gave a short, forgettable and procedural observation that she would oppose the clause and support various amendments. Though beginning her speech by saying that the Church of England's view on abortion was "one of principled opposition", she focused on "the safeguards and enforcements of legal limits", rather than giving a spirited tirade about the fundamental issue at stake.
Since Sarah Mullally took a detour from the Becket Way pilgrimage to debate the issue, she might do worse than to dust down a copy of the former Archbishop of York's Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (Sermon of the Wolf) delivered in 1014 when England was being mercilessly attacked by the Danes. Wulfstan blamed not the Danes (read Labour /The House of Lords/BPAS, RCOG etc.), but the nation at large (us) for living badly – thus inviting devastation.
Nothing has prospered now for a long time, at home or abroad; but there was harrying and hunger, now burning and bloodshed in every place often and frequently… and excessive tax has greatly oppressed us. … Therefore in this country, as it appears, there have now been many years of many injustices, and unstable loyalties everywhere among men. … None of us has ordered his life as he ought to… we have not kept the teachings or the laws of God or man as we ought to do.
To call on the 11th century Wulfstan as a guide to the very modern-day problem of 'abortion pills by post' might seem absurd, but as ever with ethics, fundamentals don't really change, only public opinion. Does public opinion now need a thunderous telling off?
Wulfstan's solution to the mess the Anglo Saxons had made for themselves was for his congregation to turn towards the right. "Let us order words and deeds justly, and cleanse our thoughts with zeal, and keep oaths and pledges carefully, and have some loyalty between us without evil practice."
It's preposterous that any public figure would say such a thing today. But now the law offers scant protection to unborn life, ought we as individuals make a better effort at doing so? As Augustine of Hippo wrote: "Let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: such as we are, such are the times."
