Abortion

Lord Mackay of Clashfern Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for raising this debate. I want to deal very briefly with two points. First, I have seen it suggested that abortion on the ground of sex selection is lawful, or not unlawful, in this country. I do not believe that is correct. The law is quite clear that an attempt to procure abortion before the Act was unlawful and now the Act allows abortion to be lawful on four grounds, none of which is sex selection. Therefore it is absolutely clear that the law prohibits that as a ground of abortion in this country.

Responsibility for seeing that the law is observed in this area, as in other areas, is with the prosecuting authorities, including the police and the DPP. The DPP has drawn attention to difficulties in relation to the arrangements that have been sanctioned by the Department of Health in this connection. My noble friend Lord Howe may have some comment to make on that. I cannot see how a medical practitioner could pre-sign the form in a way that conforms with the statute. My noble friend said that the law is construed in such a way as to allow abortion on demand, but the law does not do that at all. It is quite wrong to suggest that the signing of the form could be done responsibly without proper knowledge of the situation of the patient at the time.