Britain and abortion. Women are more likely to support new restrictions
by Paul Goodman, Conservative Home:
Penny Mordaunt, Amber Rudd, Justine Greening, Nicky Morgan, Maria Miller – all support abortion law reform in Northern Ireland. Stella Creasy, who led the Parliamentary move to force the public funding of abortions there on a resistant Government, is also campaigning for change. Since women are more directly affected than men by abortion, it is right that what they say should be projected, in the Commons and out of it. But what is their collective take – not only about abortion in Northern Ireland, but also in the rest of the United Kingdom?
First things first. NatCen Social Research found last year that 70 per cent of people support abortion if the mother does not want the child. It confirmed a liberalising trend. All age groups have become more permissive in their attitudes over time. People with fewer educational qualifications are more resistant to the practice.
The agency sticks to a few simple, clear questions that it has been asking since 1983. It highlights what may be a pro-choice shift among Catholics – conceding that “the sample sizes are small” – but doesn’t refer to the views of non-Christians. It would be interesting to know the view of non-Christian religious believers and, by extension, that of the ethnic minority population as a whole (among whom Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus are concentrated). NatCen Social Research’s method does not allow for questions about time limits. So it doesn’t tell us whether people support abortion when the mother doesn’t want the child up to birth, for example.
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