Foetal Sentience Committee Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Baroness Thornton

2nd reading
Friday 22nd March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

The noble Lord will note that my noble friend made all her remarks within the guidelines of the House on how we address each other. He may not enjoy what she had to say, and he may disagree with her—some of us do agree with her—however, she did it within the rules of the House.

First, I would like to congratulate—

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness. I do not think I have ever misused the procedures of the House and I do not intend to start now. I respect the noble Baroness and we have made common cause on my occasions. Does she think it is within the rules of the House to talk about other noble Lords as if they are dupes or as if they are in receipt of money from outside that has been undeclared?

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

If the noble Lord reads Hansard, I am not sure that that is actually what my noble friend said. However, she is perfectly capable of defending herself.

I want to start my remarks by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on introducing the Bill with such clarity. He called it “modest”, but I beg to differ: this is not a modest Bill. It is short, which definitely helps, but it is not modest. I also need to start by stating that Labour’s policy is that abortion is an essential part of healthcare. We support a woman’s right to choose and we believe that access to safe, legal abortion should be available throughout the UK.

We need to be clear about the true intentions of this proposal: it seeks to chip away at the Abortion Act and change how we govern abortion law. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, may have said that this is not about abortion or the Abortion Act, but the fact that so many of his supporters have said exactly the opposite—that this is indeed about abortion—shows that that is what the Bill is actually about. We can be clear that that is the intention behind the Bill.

The topic of foetal sentience is under constant review by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and its last review found no evidence of a foetus experiencing pain before 24 weeks. It is best that we trust expert medical bodies and scientists, not a Government-appointed committee, to say what is the case and how we should proceed. We need to be clear that the Bill seeks to circumvent expert clinical guidance because it has an ideological disagreement with its conclusions. I was looking at the list of participants on the committee of the royal college, and I suggest that noble Lords do the same because it is a truly impressive medical and scientific body that takes its job very seriously. One noble Lord said they had changed their view between 2010 and 2022. In a way, that proves the point: the point of that committee is to do that review.

Has there ever been a time when a Bill has been brought to this House asking the Government to set up a committee to analyse the medical evidence for, for example, coronary heart disease or endometriosis? No, because we trust the relevant expert medical bodies to do that job for us. We believe the Bill represents a dangerous move to politicise the way that we make decisions about healthcare, and for that reason I will not be supporting it if it moves forward.

The review of foetal awareness of pain reception undertaken by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists found in 2010 that the cerebral cortex is necessary for pain perception, and that connections from the periphery to the cortex are not intact before 28 weeks. It was therefore concluded that a foetus cannot experience pain in any sense before that stage. In the light of that, I ask noble Lords to ask why we would vote to set up a committee on that issue, unless that evidence is not considered robust.

I note that, if the Bill were to pass, the remit of this government committee would not extend to the health and well-being of pregnant women, as the noble Baroness said. The comments about sentience in fish, animals and so on make one question where the supporters of the Bill place women’s health, well-being and reproductive rights on the scale of animals, fish and so on. One has to question where that is coming from.

No other area of healthcare is subjected to a dedicated government committee designed to limit access to its treatment. The Bill would leave a woman’s right to access to care at the whim of a committee focused solely on the foetus, with no remit to consider women’s experience, needs or rights. I will certainly not support the Bill as it progresses.