Abortion

Lord Gordon of Strathblane Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Gordon of Strathblane (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baroness for securing this debate. She will forgive me if, for reasons of time, I am not more fulsome in those thanks. I also thank the staff of the Library, who have produced a very helpful briefing note.

Debates on abortion are fairly rare, for the obvious reason that they are seldom debates. Discussion is polarised between those who regard abortion as a form of retrospective birth control and those on the other side who regard it as a form of anticipatory infanticide—and never the two find common ground. I hope that today might be an exception, because I think we are all united that abortion for gender selection reasons is wrong—the question is what we do about it. The noble Baroness has already quoted the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and Ministers in the other place, and it is clear that the Department of Health has echoed that point of view. In fairness to the former Director of Public Prosecutions, who has so far refused to prosecute anyone, it is worth while quoting what he says in defence of the department:

“I am bound to observe that the limited medical guidance; the approach apparently endorsed by the HAS/1 form that an abortion can be performed without either medical practitioner having actual direct contact with the woman requesting an abortion; and the past practice of pre-signing HAS/1 forms present real difficulties in bringing a prosecution of doctors for failing to carry out a sufficiently robust risk assessment of their patients in cases such as these. Whether the current arrangements should be altered or tightened is, of course, a matter for others”.

I hope that we will discuss today how we can address those legitimate points raised by the DPP. It would be helpful if the Minister would indicate that the practice of pre-signing forms will be outlawed from now on, and confirm the figures as regards doctors actually seeing a patient before signing an abortion form. Questions on this issue were asked in the House of Commons by Sir Edward Leigh in successive months—I think on 13 January and 13 February. On one occasion he was told that only 46% of doctors had seen the patient in these circumstances. He was subsequently told that the Government did not have the figures because they were not available. Will the Minister clarify whether the figures are available?

I hope we are all in agreement that the real problem is that Section 1(1)(a) is so widely drafted that it permits abortion on demand. That was certainly not what the promoters of the 1967 Act wanted. However, on the other hand, some Members of the House of Lords may want that now, in which case I hope they will bring forward legislation and introduce that measure by the front door, not the back door.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I remind noble Lords that this is a time-limited debate and that all speeches should be limited to two minutes.