UK House of Lords Votes To Legalize Abortion Up To & During Birth For Any Reason

The House of Lords have voted to approve the details of the Crime and Policing Bill that will decriminalize abortion up to and during birth…for any reason.

The House of Commons passed the legislation back in June last year despite only 46 minutes of debate on the issue.

That came as part of an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill.

The amendment included a clause to change the law to decriminalize abortions for any reason, including if women did not want to have a child of a certain sex, and at any point up to and during birth.

Tory peer Baroness Monckton then tabled an amendment to remove the “radical proposal” from the draft law.

Tory peer Baroness Monckton tabled an amendment to the Bill in the Lords to remove the “radical proposal” which she said was passed in the Commons “without any evidence, scrutiny, public consultation or impact assessment”.

GBNews reports: But on Wednesday night, peers voted this down by 185 votes to 148, majority 37.

Campaigners have warned the clause will lead to a significant increase in the number of women performing late-term abortions at home.

Polling by Savanta ComRes has also found that just one per cent of Britons support abortion up to birth.

But proponents said the amendment in general would remove the threat of “investigation, arrest, prosecution or imprisonment” of any woman who terminates her own pregnancy.

On Wednesday, peers also rejected amendment 425, tabled by Baroness Stroud, which would have reinstated in-person consultations with a medical professional before abortion pills can be prescribed.

Under the current law it is legal to take the pills at home if a woman is fewer than 10 weeks pregnant.

But the Lords rejected the bid to move back to compulsory in-person consultations by 191 votes to 119, majority 72.

Writing for GB News yesterday, former Health Minister Maria Caulfield said that passing the amendment would mean “infanticide… would become possible with no legal consequence”.

She also warned that “our society will be damaged and its moral credibility greatly diminished” by the move.

While Catherine Robinson, spokeswoman for pro-life group Right to Life, said the “abortion up to birth” clause is “one of the most extreme pieces of legislation ever to pass the House of Commons and the House of Lords”.

“It is a travesty that such an enormous and terrible legislative change, which will directly endanger the lives of unborn babies well beyond the point at which they would be able to survive outside the womb, as well as the lives of their mothers, has been allowed to happen,” she added.

“There is no public appetite for this change, and it was not part of the Government’s manifesto.”