Foetal Sentience Committee Bill [HL]

Lord Robathan Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

It is quite clear that the purpose of the Bill is to seek to roll back advances that have been made in relation to abortion, and to try to reduce the time limits we currently have. The House should know that in 2020, £390,000 came through the ADF into the UK, and it is not disclosed where those funds come from. That money doubled to £770,000 in 2022. We do not have a current figure, but I am sure it is multiplying at a rate of knots. We are seeing, I am afraid, an effort to weaponise the issue of abortion and women’s freedom in order to create divisions in our society. I really hope the House sees the purport in the Bill.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Moylan on bringing forward the Bill—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, first, I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for my inability to read. Secondly, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Moylan on bringing forward this Bill. To the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, I say, not only am I not in receipt of any dark money; I am not a member of any sort of pro-life group, APPG or anything like that.

I think it fair to say that the Bill is not that likely to become law, so I suggest that my noble friend is putting down a marker. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, expressed very well the way we should be looking at these things, on a scientific basis. I am, in fact, going to talk about abortion, which is a path down which one should tread very warily. Last year, there were some 200,000 or more abortions, of which the vast majority will have been perfectly healthy foetuses that people just did not wish to take to term. That was not the intention of David Steel in 1967; it was thought to be quite a minor adjustment to the number of children that would be aborted.

My own view is that abortion is necessary on many occasions, but it is a necessary evil. It is not something that anybody could contemplate lightly or would wish to see happen—either the mother or indeed the child. This is not about women’s rights. The reason why I am putting down a marker today is that there is talk of decriminalising late abortions, after one or two very high-profile cases of a mother being prosecuted. In the particular case I am thinking of, a mother aborted at home, through drugs, a 36-week-old foetus.

Of course, that child could have lived perfectly happily, so we have to ask ourselves not about women’s rights, but about where murder begins and murder ends. A child that could have been born perfectly happily—that is being born in the ward next door—being aborted when it could have lived, seems to me to be a very, very serious matter. I put this down as a marker because I hope that nobody will pursue the idea that we decriminalise late abortions, which may take place at home. This is not about women’s rights, but about a decent, humane society.