We wanted to share some brilliant news with you.
As a result of the Prime Minister’s announcement just now that a snap General Election will be held on 4 July 2024, Parliament will be dissolved shortly.
This means that all Parliamentary business that has not been approved by then will fall, including the Criminal Justice Bill. Even if the Criminal Justice Bill is fast-tracked before Parliament is dissolved, it is highly unlikely that controversial amendments that have not yet been considered, such as those relating to abortion, will be included in the final version of the Bill.
This means that the two extreme abortion up to birth amendments tabled by Diana Johnson and Stella Creasy will now not pass and these extreme changes to our abortion laws will not become law!
If these amendments had passed in the House of Commons, they would have ushered in the largest change to abortion legislation since 1967 – this would have likely led to the loss of many more lives to abortion.
How this victory was achieved
The Criminal Justice Bill had its first reading on 1 November 2023 and Committee Stage ended on 30 January 2024. On 31 January, the Government started accepting amendments to the Bill for Report Stage.
The Bill was then expected to proceed through the remaining stages in the Commons and Lords and should have completed all of its stages by now.
Anticipating that there was a real risk that these extreme abortion up to birth amendments could pass, or the abortion lobby could force the Government into making a concession, which would have likely resulted in many more lives being lost to abortion, pro-life MPs proceeded with tabling their own pro-life amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill.
This ensured that the Government was far less likely to do a deal with either Stella Creasy or Diana Johnson and make a pro-abortion change to abortion policy ahead of a potential vote, a tactic that the abortion lobby had used in the past.
With proactive pro-life amendments in play, the Government had the ability to push back on demands for policy concessions from pro-abortion MPs.
At the same time, pro-life MPs took to the media making it clear that they would not be able to vote for the Bill in its entirety if the pro-abortion amendments passed.
The tabling of these pro-life amendments, with signatures from at least 50 MPs on each, showed to the Government that there was a significant chance that they would pass, and their Criminal Justice Bill would become what is known as a ‘Christmas tree bill’, a bill that makes many unrelated changes to the law.
This is something that Governments usually want to avoid.
So the Government appear to have subsequently delayed Report Stage of the Bill for a number of months, and then pushed back the scheduled debate on the abortion amendments to 4 June, after Parliament would be dissolved.
This was likely to avoid what the Government would perceive as controversial votes on a series of amendments and also so they could avoid the potential defeat of the Bill at Third Reading if pro-lifers decided to vote against it.
MPs also took the approach of tabling pro-life amendments, since going on the offensive would assist the work they were doing in Parliament to defeat opposition amendments – by campaigning for a lowering of the time limit and other positive changes to the law, they were able to draw attention to how extreme our abortion laws already are, making any further loosening of the law appear even more extreme.
Finally, had the positive pro-life amendments passed, and the Government had allowed the Bill to complete all stages and received Royal Assent, they would have made significant pro-life changes to our laws that would have likely saved many more lives from abortion.
Sadly, given the Bill will no longer proceed, pro-life MPs will not be able to make these changes to our law, but significant momentum for these changes has been built in Parliament, the media and among the general public through these amendments being tabled.
In short, the fact that these pro-life law changes were not made is the downside of the announcement of the snap general election today.
The upside of the announcement today is that the pro-abortion amendments will fall and not become law.
This is a major victory.
The pro-abortion amendments, had they become law, would have likely resulted in many more lives being lost to abortion.
These lives have been saved by this major victory.
This could not have happened without you
Thank you to the tens of thousands of you around the country who have taken a series of campaign actions over the last six months, including emailing your MPs, signing petitions, sending postcards, sharing campaigns with friends and many other actions that have culminated in this major victory today.
Thank you also to our supporters who have given so generously to enable us to have the resources in place to run not one but three major nationwide campaigns over the last six months:
- The No To Abortion Up To Birth campaign opposing the two pro-abortion amendments.
- The Little Fighters campaign supporting Caroline Ansell’s abortion time limit reduction amendment.
- The Protect Both Lives campaign supporting Flick Drummond’s amendment to reinstate in-person consultations to help protect women and babies from dangerous late-term home abortions.
Together these three campaigns have been the largest nationwide pro-life campaign run in the United Kingdom in a generation.
Millions of people have been reached through these campaigns.
None of this would have been in place in order to help achieve this amazing victory today without your generous financial support.
Today’s victory would not have happened without you.
So well done!
SADLY, THIS IS NOT THE END
Unfortunately, this is not the end. The abortion lobby never sleeps. We know they will be back soon after the General Election with their next attempt to make extreme changes to abortion legislation, so we will need to be ready to ensure there is a strong response from the public against their next attempt.
In the meantime, thank you again for all your help in achieving this significant victory – and make sure you celebrate tonight!
Thank you for your ongoing support.
