Dr Caroline Johnson

Every jurisdiction has a democratic right to do as it chooses and I respect that, but it is a tragedy when we hear of cases where late-term abortions have not been supported by medical care or the law, and women and infants have suffered significant harm as a result. I want to raise the case of Stuart Worby. Some people say that this issue is about protecting vulnerable women, but in this case, which was prosecuted in December 2024, a man who did not want his partner to be pregnant, when she did want to be pregnant, decided to take matters into his own hands. He asked a woman who was not pregnant to get the pills for him. He put them in a drink and gave them to his partner, inducing a miscarriage. He has rightly been put in jail for that, but the case demonstrates that there are men out there who will obtain tablets with the help of a woman. That could not have happened if women had to have an in-person appointment, because the woman arriving at the clinic to get the abortion pills on the man’s behalf would be clearly seen not to be pregnant, so would not be able to obtain the medication. My amendment seeks to protect women—women who are wrong about their gestation or who are mistaken in thinking they have had a bleed or whatever—to make sure that they have a safe termination using the right mechanisms.