Ask your MP to stop abortion up to birth being introduced

The case would not have happened had the gestation of baby Lily been accurately identified by ultrasound or a physical examination during an in-person appointment. If this appointment had taken place, the gestation of the baby would have been accurately identified and the abortion could not have taken place.

As you are likely aware, in-person appointments had previously been required ahead of a medical abortion taking place, but abortion provider BPAS successfully lobbied the Government to have them removed during the pandemic.

It then became clear that women were not accurately estimating their gestation at home, along with a number of other safeguarding issues arising with at-home abortion schemes.

Over 600 medical professionals, 70% of respondents to a Government consultation and a large number of MPs, including Miriam Cates who specifically mentioned risks around inaccurate gestational estimates, called for a reinstatement of in-person appointments. The Government then decided to reinstate in-person appointments.

Abortion provider BPAS then joined prominent pro-abortion MPs to support an amendment to the Health and Care Bill that passed by a narrow margin of 27 votes to overturn the Government’s decision to reinstate these appointments.

Rather than take responsibility for sending out abortion pills 22 weeks beyond the legal limit for at-home abortions and risking the health of the mother as well as her unborn child, this same abortion provider, BPAS, is now cynically using this woman’s tragic experience of using its abortion service to lobby the Government and MPs to fully ‘decriminalise’ abortion.

In England and Wales, this would involve repealing sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act along with the Infant Life Preservation Act.

As the Abortion Act 1967 was passed to create exemptions to 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act along with the Infant Life Preservation Act, repealing this legislation would make the Abortion Act 1967 redundant in England and Wales.

This change in law would scrap the current 24-week time limit for abortion, and abortion would be available on demand, for any reason, up to birth. The upper time limit would be completely abolished.

Abortion provider BPAS, which has been campaigning for this law change, has made it explicit that it is campaigning to remove all gestational time limits for abortion. This position was affirmed by its then CEO, Ann Furedi, who at the launch of the campaign to ‘decriminalise’ abortion stated, “I want to be very, very clear and blunt … there should be no legal upper limit”.

This proposal is completely out of line with where women stand on the issue. Polling from Savanta ComRes on whether time limits for abortion should be increased showed that only 1% of women in Great Britain wanted the time limit to be extended to more than 24 weeks and 1% wanted it to be increased right through to birth, in contrast to 70% of women who favoured a reduction in time limits.

Please enter your postcode in the box above to write to your MP asking them to oppose introducing abortion up to birth and instead ask the Government to reinstate in-person appointments to ensure babies like Lily are protected in the future.