New Abortion Attacks in the House of Lords
Two Lords are employing the anti-abortion ‘chipping away’ strategy
Fresh hell already… Today, the anti-abortion organisation ‘Right to Life’ shared their excitement that two members of the UK House of Lords have had their thinly veiled anti-abortion bills pulled from the ballot, giving them the opportunity to become law.
One of these Lords, Lord Moylan, was targeting abortion before the election under the guise of ‘foetal sentience.’ It went nowhere due to the snap election.
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/lln-2024-0014/
Moylan’s latest attempt, the “Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill,” sounded very familiar to me because ‘reporting abortion complications’ is straight out of the Texan playbook, where they are using so-called ‘complications’ to try and paint abortion, a very safe procedure, as dangerous by collating junk data. Jessica Valenti has reported on how this is playing out in Texas. There is little information about Moylan’s bill but, as a man utterly obsessed with abortion, it is likely that the Texan model is what he had in mind.
The second Lord whom anti-abortion organisations are celebrating is Lord Farmer—another abortion-obsessed man who cannot be trusted. His bill, ‘Support for Infants and Parents etc. (Information) Bill,’ sounds harmless, but there will almost definitely be some kind of agenda, especially if his anti-buffer zone hyperbole and propaganda are anything to go by, an example of which is below.
https://thecritic.co.uk/keep-the-cops-out-of-our-minds/
One excellent person who I am very glad is in the Lords is Baroness Kennedy. She vigorously challenged Moylan earlier this year and highlighted the dodgy evangelical money being poured into the UK to curtail abortion rights. Her speech is worth listening to.
Incidentally, her book ‘Misjustice: How British Law is Failing Women’ is also an excellent pro-choice read and points out that real infanticide (not the fantasies going on in the heads of anti-abortion zealots) has actually gone down with the destigmatisation of so-called ‘illegitimate children.’ Contraceptives and abortion mean fewer terrified girls and young women trying to hide and deal with pregnancies alone.
What can we do?
However, it is very worth reminding that we have just ousted a large number of anti-abortion MPs and NOW is the time to push for abortion decriminalisation while the numbers are on our side. See below for my link to a template letter I wrote to my MP. Feel free to use and share.
https://open.substack.com/pub/gemmaclark/p/shiny-new-mps?r=1z5d7u&utm_medium=ios
Thanks for all your hard work Gemma.