Lord Pannick (CB)

It was suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, that Clause 208 would undermine respect for the law. On the contrary, it will enhance respect for the law, because it will express in statutory form compassion for women who have the misfortune to suffer the loss of their baby at late term for whatever reason it occurs, and it will prevent intrusive, distressing police investigations at a most sensitive time in any woman’s life. It has been suggested that there should be a balance in the law. Clause 208 already includes the necessary balance because it protects the woman but maintains the criminal liability of anyone who assists her to have a late-term abortion, whether it be the abusive partner, the rogue doctor or whoever it may be. That is right and proper, and that is the balance that should be accorded. As a lawyer, I look for precedents. The precedent that occurs to me is the Suicide Act 1961, in which Parliament recognised that a person who had the misfortune to seek to take their own life should not be prosecuted. You cannot be prosecuted for attempting to end your own life. But the law says—I appreciate that we are currently debating the assisted dying Bill, but my speech has nothing to do with that—that if you assist a person to seek to take their own life, you can be prosecuted. That is the distinction there, and it is the distinction in Clause 208.