Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to bring forward legislation to remove the threat of the criminal prosecution of health care professionals providing abortion services and replace it by appropriate healthcare regulation.

Parliament decided the circumstances under which abortion can be legally undertaken. As with other matters of conscience, abortion is an issue on which the Government adopts a neutral stance. It is accepted Parliamentary practice that proposals for changes in the law on abortion come from back-bench members and that decisions are made on the basis of free votes.