Abortion (Disability Equality) Bill [HL]

Viscount Bridgeman Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Bridgeman (Con)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Shinkwin for bringing forward this Bill. It is a courageous move. On the face of it, it restricts the options available to a mother faced with the appalling dilemma of knowing that she is carrying a seriously disabled foetus, and of having the time available for making a decision on abortion reduced under these proposals from the whole period of pregnancy to the first 24 weeks. I am very well aware that I speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, who articulated this issue so eloquently.

However, my noble friend Lord Shinkwin has seen this problem in a different light—a vision shared by most of the speakers today, and reinforced by his own personal experience. He is supported by a huge body of outside evidence from the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Disability Rights Commission and the UK report on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Furthermore, the parliamentary inquiry into abortion for disability specifically recommended the repeal of Section 1(1)d of the 1967 Act. Finally, there is the legal opinion prepared by Hugh Preston QC, who agrees that the Bill—as others have said—is succinct and limited in its scope. I am grateful to my noble friend for reading extracts from this opinion, which is very realistic. Incidentally, the document reminds us that there is a relatively low threshold for aborting a disabled baby under Section 1(1)(a) .

My noble friend recalled the statistics that revealed the large number of abortions on the grounds of disability that had taken place over the past five and past 20 years respectively. He also mentioned that there has been only a tiny decrease in overall abortion numbers of 0.32% over the period 2005 to 2015. My noble friend has significantly described the law as it stands as “abortion by stealth”, and most certainly not what was intended by the Abortion Act 1967 or the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.

In conclusion, I congratulate my noble friend on his meticulous research and the compelling case he makes, given his truly personal experience, for the removal of Section 1(1)(d) of the Abortion Act, which this Bill proposes. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.