Bid in Lords to overturn move to decriminalise abortion for women

I could equally make the same argument that just because a pregnant woman feels that her foetus is alive, it doesn’t mean it is.

You absolutely were trying to use my pregnancy losses against against me. It’s a really crappy thing to say.

The feelings of the woman have no bearing on the fact that the foetus and then the pre-term baby is alive, though.

Absolutely some would, as demonstrated on this thread, but some wouldn’t. I’m not sure of your point, we’ve already established that pregnant women don’t all feel the same way

I agree.....

I'm not saying it in a horrible way...surely losing several pregnancies must have been upsetting? Usually a desired for pregnancy that results in a miscarriage causes some grief - for the loss of life and potential etc.

Perinatal deaths (death of a baby after 24 weeks gestation, whether before or after delivery) are (too) common, and the present law requires, in principle, that the police investigate each and every one, in case someone has done something to induce early delivery and/or harm the fœtus in some other way. It's a needle in a haystack (and potentially upsetting to a lot of bereaved parents) and the idea of decriminalisation is to free up resource and redirect it to eg tightening up pills-by-post; educating women that taking abortifacients after the recommended time is medically dangerous for them; and detecting and punishing coercive or deceptive third parties, and HCPs who offer abortion without medical justification after 24 weeks. It's not abortion on demand up until full term.

And yes, every fertilised egg is alive. And every baby who dies after 24 weeks gets either a stillbirth registration (needed for a funeral and to access parental rights) or both birth and death registrations.

I didn't ask about your view though. I already know what that is.

Do you really genuinely believe that, if you went out and did what I asked, the majority would say that their baby wasn't alive?

It pretty awful to try to use a woman’s pregnancy losses against her. Do you feel better for saying that?

I have had 3 children myself so I know what it is like to be pregnant. My view remains unchanged.

A baby is wholly dependent on its mother or other adult for the maintenance of its life for a considerable time after birth . One of the prices humans paid for developing a bipedal gait and a large brain is total helplessness at birth.

Is that maybe why you are finding it hard to acknowledge the loss of life involved?

There have been at least two British women who lied about their gestation to obtain these pills. They were not desperate young teens, but grown ass women who knew better and did it anyway.

I think the suggestions that a pre-term baby isn't alive is but one way of trying to reconcile a 'no limits' and 'no consequence' attitude towards abortion - with the deeper realisation that of course abortion has a moral dimension. It seems to me like a very naive form of ideological extremism/zealotry.

This is Kwisher Falkner's argument, as I understand it.

If there is no sanction in law, what reason can one give a controlling partner who insists that it is perfectly permissible in law? Decriminalisation suggests that there is nothing to prevent the woman from aborting late-term through the convenience of pills by post, virtually no questions asked.

So you have the perverse effect that, alongside the certainty of greater autonomy for women, we may well see the risk of coercive control and deception.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2026-02-02/debates/B847A0CA-90DA-43EC-BB08-F8038ADE364E/CrimeAndPolicingBill#contribution-B82352D7-9B78-4725-A743-2FB8A39BA96D

I never said you were a flat earther.

Please go out and find any visibly pregnant woman and ask her if her baby is alive. Let me know what they say.

This law wouldn't prevent late term abortions for incredibly grave and sad reasons. If a woman finds out her baby is seriously ill, won't survive etc, then she will continue to be allowed to abort. What she can't do legally now is do a DIY abortion. Those would be legal for her to do if the law is changed.

I have had 4 miscarriages and an ectopic. I have no problem with the comment she made.

And I’m not a flat earther.

99%? What’s your source for that figure? The recent debates in parliament about this show that you are incorrect. Even on this thread, 99% of posters don’t agree with you.

Abortion up to term has existed for 50+ years.

In 2023 there were 15 terminations in the final
Q of pregnancy (post 30 weeks); there were 8 terminations post 35 wks.

The numbers have been broadly static for 50+ years.

theres no evidence that women seek late term abortions in anything but the most hideous of personal experiences. I am ok with keeping that right for desperate women and girls.

Please don’t say that to anyone who has ever had a stillbirth or miscarriage.

I'm sorry, but the majority of people do not share your view.

99.9% of women, who have been pregnant and given birth, will have believed that their baby was alive before they were born.

I'm an atheist btw and definitely not anywhere near far right.

You might feel that such discussions are like talking to flat earthers, in the same way I feel like I’m talking to people from the religious right.

And actually the majority of people share my view, that’s why the commons voted in favour of decriminalisation.

Value is a totally different thing from whether something is alive. I totally respect that people have different perspectives on the issue of abortion (and am somewhere in the middle myself), but I can't respect the viewpoint of someone who thinks that (a) nothing is alive unless it's ending results in a death certificate (b) doesn't seem to understand the meaning of the word alive. It's either a complete and utter lack of education (at the a very early level), a complete lack of understanding or a baffling level of cognitive dissonance. I'm even getting pushback on the idea that a virus is alive. Some of this make flat earthers sound same.

I do not believe that a woman who knowingly aborts her own baby past the legal limit should not face the consequences of her actions.

If there is a pocket of raging pro-lifers in the U.K. then they have been handed perfect ammunition to spark off the debate that has been pretty settled here for decades.

Like other posters, if we were forced to accept either no abortion at all or abortion up to term then I’m afraid I would have to reluctantly take the side of no abortion.

Do we really want to be like the USA? Our abortion limits were already quite a bit looser than most of Europe.