Pro-life veteran and former Minister and MP, Ann Widdecombe, died at her home yesterday morning at the age of 78. During her long and distinguished career in Parliament, she was a leader in the public fight for protections for unborn babies at the beginning of life and the elderly and vulnerable towards the end of life.
As a patron of Right To Life UK for many years, her strong and consistent pro-life voting record serves as an example and aspiration for younger pro-life politicians entering the world of being a publicly pro-life politician.
First elected as a Conservative MP for Maidstone in 1987, she held her seat until leaving the Commons in 2010, during which time she held two Ministerial positions, including Minister of State at the Home Office with responsibility for prisons and immigration. She was the only prison Minister to have personally visited every prison in England and Wales.
She returned to frontline politics in 2019 as a Member of the European Parliament until January 2020.
During her time in politics and after, she consistently voted in favour of greater protections for unborn babies and against attempts to legalise assisted suicide. As early as 1990, in a debate on the Abortion Act 1967, she argued that abortion should not be treated as any other medical intervention and that existing protections for unborn babies should not be eroded further.
In the same year, when debating amendments to the then Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, Widdecombe insisted that unborn babies not be left out of the discussion, arguing that, due to medical advances, the abortion limit should be lowered.
In another debate in the same year, Widdecombe raised concerns that an amendment to abortion legislation, allowing the Health Secretary to designate “a class of places” as suitable for abortions, would inadvertently pave the way for at-home abortions.
However, the author of the amendment, Robert Key MP, dismissed Widdecombe’s concerns and accused the then Conservative MP of speaking from “the whip issued by the pro-life group” and misleading Parliament.
The Health Secretary at the time, Kenneth Clarke, then assured MPs that the legislation was not intended to legalise home abortions and that abortions would only be “administered only in closely regulated circumstances under the supervision of a registered medical practitioner”.
30 years later, Ann Widdecombe’s then-dismissed concerns have become a reality in the form of pills-by-post abortion, which, as of 2023, accounts for 72% of all abortions in England and Wales.
In 2007, she supported a Bill that would have required parents to be informed if their child under 16 had an abortion.
In 2008, she voted in favour of a series of amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, including an amendment to lower the abortion limit for abortions performed under Section 1(1)(a) of the Abortion Act to 12 weeks.
Opposition to assisted suicide and protection of the vulnerable
Widdecombe also served in a senior role in the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group and fought against attempts to make assisted suicide legal in 1997, 2000 and 2004.
Even after leaving the Commons, she continued her vocal opposition to assisted suicide. In 2012 she strongly opposed the notion, advanced by Dignitas founder Ludwig Minelli, that clinically depressed people should be assisted in suicide. “It is absolutely ludicrous. The answer to clinical depression is to get people help not to end their lives”.
“I think this is one very dangerous man and one very dangerous organisation”.
In the ongoing debate over Kim Leadbeater’s, now Lauren Edwards’, assisted suicide Bill, Ann Widdecombe was a powerful and consistent voice in the media opposition to this legislation because of the negative effects it may have on the vulnerable.
In the months before Leadbeater launched her Bill, Widdecombe warned that, if assisted suicide were made legal, “it is impossible to introduce adequate safeguards to protect the mentally ill, disabled and the frail elderly”.
She later described the assisted suicide Bill as “riddled with horrors”, saying that “Appeals [in cases of assisted suicide under the Leadbeater Bill] work only one way: one can appeal against a refusal but a relative, concerned about suspected coercion, for example, cannot appeal against an affirmative decision and coroners cannot investigate”.
Chris Whitehouse, a Right To Life UK Trustee, said “For 40 years, Ann was to me a personal and family friend, a political mentor and a remarkable heroine of the pro-life cause. To have known her was a pleasure and a privilege, if sometimes a challenge. She was unflinching in her politics, constant in her friendships and steadfast in her defence of the principle of the right to life, both for the unborn and for those approaching the end of their lives”.
“May the choirs of angels come to greet her, may they speed her to paradise, may the Lord enfold her in His mercy, and may she find eternal life and rest after a lifetime of pro-life endeavour”.
Friend and former colleague of Ann Widdecombe, Lord Alton, said “So very sorry to learn of the death of Ann Widdecombe”.
“Ann’s forthright views – whether you agreed with her or not – were always trenchantly, intelligently, and honestly expressed – and never with malice”.
“Beyond the well-known public figure, there was also a less well-known private person, capable of great kindness in responding to people facing personal challenges and tragedy. As they will attest, she was never a fair-weather friend”.
“At a time when the national debate needs respectful disagreement and intelligent debate, Ann’s voice will be missed”.
“I will not be alone in mourning her passing”.
