On Tuesday, Parliament voted to decriminalise abortion after 24 weeks. On Friday, Parliament voted to allow assisted dying. All eyes were on the latter change. LBC’s report was typical: “MPs pass landmark assisted dying bill by just 23 votes following emotional debate in historic social change”.
In contrast, the change to the abortion law had an easy birth. It was passed by a landslide. Scarcely anyone talked about it before it was passed – it featured in no manifesto – and, beyond a few sighs, even the right wing press does not seem to want to talk much about it now. It is portrayed as a merely technical change to deal with a few edge cases. Much is made of the fact that late abortions are not being legalised; rather they are being decriminalised. “It would not alter the settled time limit for a termination,” said the Labour MP Stella Creasy, disingenuously in my opinion, given that it makes the settled time limit into dead-letter law.
My record in political predictions is not great, but I will make three of them now.
1) This law will result in far more late-term abortions than its proponents predict. Many supporters of decriminalisation have pointed out, as did the Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi in the BBC article I linked to above, that nearly 99% of abortions happen before a pregnancy reaches 20 weeks, leaving just 1% of women “in desperate circumstances”. But the number of people willing to do a thing when there are no penalties for doing it is much greater than the number willing to do it when there are penalties. And as the number of late term abortions becomes higher, the reasons for doing it will become slighter.
2) It’s 2025. People film everything on their smartphones. People will film late term abortions. Supporters of abortion will do it to show that they are not ashamed. Opponents of abortion will do it to show how similar the foetus you are now allowed to kill at 35 weeks looks to the baby you are not allowed to kill at 40 weeks. (Or at 35 weeks if it happens to have exited the birth canal.) And some will livestream late term abortions to show, or sell, the video to the curious. The dissemination of close-up images of what a late term abortion looks like in real time will change the abortion debate in the same way that the dissemination of close-up images of what being on the receiving end of an airstrike looks like in real time have changed the debate about war.
Of course visceral reactions to seeing war or abortion at close range do not change the logical arguments about either. But the Left has very little practice in countering the strongest argument against abortion, the very one that will be literally brought into sharp focus by the smartphone “record” button. As I said in a post called “How not to change minds on abortion”,
Over the years I must have read hundreds of Guardian articles on abortion, mostly in its US section because abortion is such a live issue there. I do not recall a single one that argued against the main sticking point of the pro-life side, namely that abortion takes a human life – let alone argued for it.
The arguments put forward in these Guardian articles and others written by progressives almost always relate solely to the rights of the woman. That is indeed an important question, but it avoids the question of whether the foetus also has rights. But pictures are harder to avoid than words.
There is nothing new about abortion being shown on film. You can find examples from both sides if you look. One of the best known examples from the anti-abortion side is the 1984 film “The Silent Scream” made by Bernard Nathanson, a former abortion provider who became an anti-abortion activist. It shows live ultrasound footage of a 12 week old foetus being aborted. Critics argued that elements of the film that seemed to show the foetus feeling pain were deceptive, as a foetus at that stage of development is not capable of pain. This argument will be unavailable in the case of similar videos showing abortion in the third trimester.
3. As a result of public outrage, in ten or fifteen years’ time the UK’s abortion laws will be stricter than they have been since 1967. My guess is that the limit will be around 15 weeks, as it is in most of Europe.
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I discussed how the issue of abortion relates to debates within libertarianism in this post from 2013: “Thinking aloud on a mountainside”.
Quote:
“Having to carry a stranger because otherwise the stranger will die is approximately the position of a pregnant woman expecting an unwanted child.”
I’m a 70 year old Tory who can no longer bring himself to vote for the Conservative Party. The people in power truly despise the Britsish people.They have given away Chagos and Gibralter’s sovregnity and the EU reset further weakens the illusion of British sovereignty in Northern Ireland.This week they have surpassed themselves. We can now kill the unborn as well as the living. While I agree with Natalie that abortion laws will be much stricter in future it will come with further restrictions.
Whosoever has spared the life of a soul, it is as though he has spared the life of all people. Whosoever has killed a soul, it is as though he has murdered all of mankind.
Qur’an 5:32
IIRC, much of Islam allows abortion until the soul enters the body, which is right at 120 days. After that, it’s forbidden unless the life of the mother is at certain risk.
So I’m wondering if the Brit Islamic world has given any feedback on this new rule.
bobby b – Islamic jurisprudence (as you know there are about five slightly different schools of thought in Sunni Islam – and there are the Shia schools of thought in relation to law) would have many criticisms of how British law has been changing over the years.
For example, the end of any real right of self defense in modern British law – at least not with a weapon, even if someone is being raped and strangle. A women was sentenced to 17 years in prison for stabbing a man who was strangling her – the Prosecution did NOT dispute this, their position was basically “knife = EVIL, smash woman!” and this is considered quite normal in Britain.
Last summer was an eye opener for many people – individuals being sent to prison for walking past a disturbance (but only if it was “right wing”) and for venting on social media (but, again, only if it is “right wing” – leftists can threaten to murder people with no punishment).
I am not a supporter of Islamic Law (far from it) – but it is very hard to present British law, as it NOW is, as much of an alternative to it.
As for legal developments on abortion law and so on.
“In a few years” – well the next General Election will not be till 2029.
How much of a country will be left in 2029?
The local Corbynite MP (Starmer removed Labour whip from) in my area voted against the assisted dying bill. Credit where it’s due, on this at least he’s a lot better than many Tory MPs, let alone Starmer
I have had little direct experience of or contact with ladies seeking or who have undergone abortions.
Except for what must be very late developing health issues I’m genuinely puzzled as to how a woman could carry a child for such a length of time only to have it aborted between months 7-9.
Relatively early abortions I understand and support insofar as it’s any of my business but why this?