A sign of the times. The remarkable quiet that follows Labour’s commitment to decriminalise abortion up until birth

Dec 1, 2019 by Jill

by Paul Goodman, Conservative Home:

A sign of the times. The remarkable quiet that follows Labour’s commitment to decriminalise abortion up until birth by Paul Goodman, Conservative Home

The Labour Party was clearly disturbed by the Catholic Herald‘s recent account of its election abortion policy. It wants to stress that “abortion procedures and those performing them must be properly regulated” and that there would be “wide public consultation on the detail of new laws and regulations”.

And the party’s manifesto does not say in terms what the Herald reports – that “the Labour Party would decriminalise abortion in Britain, making it legal to have an abortion for any reason up to the birth of a child”.

However, the Herald‘s reading of the manifesto is undoubtedly correct. It says that “we will uphold women’s reproductive rights and decriminalise abortions”. Some will find it deeply disturbing to see it proposed that state healthcare provision could thus simultaneously provide for the delivery of some babies and the abortion of others up to birth under the same roof as a matter of usual course – this site included.

But what is striking is the lack of comment and debate about Labour’s proposed policy, whatever one’s view of it. After all, it is not only pro-lifers who might jib at the United Kingdom acquiring one of the most permissive abortion laws in the world. (The most common time limit among EU member states is twelve weeks.) Some of those who back the current legal settlement would do so.

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