22 July 2019: At 5:30pm this evening it was announced that Jo Swinson was elected as the new leader of the Liberal Democrats.
She won 47,997 votes, against a vote of 28,021 for Ed Davey.
Jo Swinson has a track-record of voting pro-abortion apart from where she has abstained and a single vote in 2011 where she voted in support of independent counselling for women seeking an abortion.
On 9 July 2019 she voted in favour of imposing abortion on Northern Ireland.
The Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill returned from the House of Lords with an even more radical abortion amendment. This amendment intends to make abortion legal until the 28th week of pregnancy. Swinson voted in favour of imposing this abortion regime on Northern Ireland.
As a result of the final amendment being passed, if the Northern Irish assembly does not return by the 21st October, abortion on demand, for any reason, up to 28 weeks will be introduced to Northern Ireland.
The proposed changes regarding independent counselling would have stopped private abortion providers from providing abortion counselling. The service would have been instead outsourced to a third party which did not have a vested financial or ideological interest in providing abortions.
Polling shows that there is very strong demand from the public for a range of changes to abortion laws in England, Wales and Scotland that would introduce new safeguards and restrictions to increase protections for the unborn child and support for women in crisis pregnancies.
At the same time, abortion campaigners have made it clear that they want to remove almost all legal safeguards around abortion.
Green squares represent the MP casting a pro-life vote, red represents a pro-abortion vote, yellow is an abstention and grey indicates that the MP was not in office at the time of the vote.
- Introduce abortion on demand, for any reason, up-to 28 weeks in Northern Ireland. – 09/07/2019
- Attempt to introduce abortion on demand, for any reason, up-to 28 weeks to Northern Ireland. 10/07/2019
- Amendment to put pressure on the Government to change abortion legislation in Northern Ireland – 24/10/2018.
- Introduce abortion on demand, for any reason, up-to 24-weeks in Northern Ireland. Remove many of the current legal safeguards around abortion provision in England and Wales – 23/10/2018.
- Introduce abortion on demand, for any reason, up-to-birth (‘Decriminalisation’) – 13/03/2017.
- Explicit ban on sex-selective abortion – 23/02/2015.
- Independent abortion counselling – 07/09/2011.
- Better information and counselling for parents facing a disability diagnosis in pregnancy – 20/05/2008.
- Reduce abortion limit to 12 weeks – 20/05/2008.
- Reduce abortion limit to 16 weeks – 20/05/2008.
- Reduce abortion limit to 20 weeks – 20/05/2008.
- Reduce abortion limit to 22 weeks – 20/05/2008.
- Counselling and 7-day cooling off period – 05/06/2007.
- Parental notification for girls 15 and under seeking an abortion – 14/03/2007.
