Baroness O’Loan’s Infant (Born Alive) Protection Bill received its First Reading this morning after being drawn at number seventeen in the House of Lords Private Members’ Bill ballot.
The Bill’s long title is “A Bill to require that an infant born alive after an attempted termination of pregnancy receives appropriate medical treatment and care; to make provision about enforcement of that requirement; and for connected purposes.”
The date for Second Reading is yet to be announced.
This is the second pro-life Bill to be introduced to the House of Lords this week. On Tuesday 9 June, Lord Moylan’s Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill received its First Reading in the House of Lords, having been drawn in fourteenth place in the House of Lords’ Private Members’ Bill ballot.
The procedure for House of Lords Private Members’ Bills
At the beginning of each session of Parliament, two days after the State Opening of Parliament, a ballot is held to select and allocate the order in which the first 25 Private Members’ Bills will be introduced in the House of Lords. Usually, a large number of Peers enter the ballot, providing a short and long title of their bill. The order of the ballot determines the order in which the bills receive their First Reading in the House.
Private Members’ Bills in the Lords do not generally get enough allocated time to be able to progress through all their stages in the House of Lords, but if they do, they can then be supported by an MP and continue in the Commons.
However, in the Commons, Lords Private Members’ Bills do not have priority over bills introduced by MPs, so unless the Government chooses to give them time, they rarely become law.
Peers usually use Private Members’ Bills as an opportunity to raise the profile of an important issue by having it debated in the Lords, and through accompanying campaigning and media opportunities.
Following the publicity and momentum for reform that this generates, a law change may then be secured at a later date through another mechanism, such as a Private Members’ Bill in the Commons or a Government Bill, or an amendment to it.
Babies born alive after an attempted abortion
Following a change in the law during the last Parliament, so that it is no longer illegal for women to perform their own abortions for any reason, including sex-selective purposes, and at any point up to and during birth, Baroness O’Loan’s Infant (Born Alive) Protection Bill aims to ensure that the law is clear regarding the protections due to babies born alive following an attempted abortion.
The change to the law introduced earlier this year through the Crime and Policing Act 2026 will likely lead to a significant increase in the number of women performing dangerous late-term abortions at home, endangering the lives of many more women.
It will also likely lead to an increased number of viable babies’ lives being ended well beyond the 24-week abortion time limit and beyond the point at which they would be able to survive outside the womb.
Tonia Antoniazzi MP, who brought forward this law change, said in an interview that she was comfortable with women being able to abort a viable baby at 37 weeks.
91% of 28,000 respondents to a poll run by The Telegraph said they were opposed to the extreme law change that was subsequently made.
High numbers of babies born alive after abortions in Australian states after abortion “decriminalised”
Following law changes to “decriminalise” abortion, starting with Victoria in 2008, abortion is now allowed up to birth in all states of Australia.
State laws in Australia allow for abortion right through to birth on physical, psychological and social grounds when approved by two doctors; these can be the abortion operating surgeon and anaesthetist.
This has, in practice, allowed for de facto abortion on demand, for any reason, right through to birth in Australia.
In the state of Victoria, of 310 late-term abortions (after 20 weeks), 33 babies were born alive and subsequently died. These deaths were recorded as “neonatal deaths” rather than deaths by abortion.
In 2008, a UK report found that 66 infants were born alive after NHS terminations in one year. The majority of those 66 babies took over an hour to die.
In the state of Victoria, scores of babies have been left to die after being born alive following a number of ‘failed’ terminations, according to one official review.
The review reported that in 2011 there were 40 ‘terminations of pregnancy’ after 20 weeks ‘resulting in live birth’. Victoria’s population of 5.5 million is just a tenth of Britain’s.
Between 2005 and 2015, 204 babies were born alive as a result of abortions in Queensland.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “Babies born alive following an abortion should have the same rights and receive the same standard of care as any other baby born at the same gestation. Sadly, the fact that it is no longer illegal for women to perform their own abortions for any reason, including sex-selective purposes, and at any point up to and during birth, means that late-term abortions outside a clinical setting are far more likely. Babies who survive such abortions need the full protection of the law, as Baroness O’Loan’s important Bill would ensure”.
