Member

In terms of the dangers, there are two things difficult for anyone to dispute. In terms of the risks to the woman, the later the abortion, the greater the risk. We can debate what the statistics are, but a late abortion will, almost by definition, create a greater level of physical risk to the mother. Secondly, an abortion—by its nature and legally, it cannot be carried out without clinical help—that is done at home through pills through the post at a very late stage will, with the removal of that medical support, create additional risk to the mother. For a range of reasons, it is dangerous. A number of amendments have been put forward that offer either amelioration or potential solutions to that. All of those are better than Clause 191. While we try to grapple with a sensitive and difficult issue—irrespective of one’s views, broadly speaking, on abortion as a whole—the main thing to my mind is that Clause 191 is not the solution to those problems.