Contribution
I shall speak very briefly to Amendments 456 and 460. I have been saddened by the lack of appreciation of the protective role that the criminal law brings, and I appreciated the comments of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. But it is important to consider some of the cases that have resulted in convictions and have not been controversial.
Sarah Catt, as reported by the BBC on 17 September 2012, aborted her baby at 39 weeks. She was prosecuted and sentenced for eight years; the body was never found—she disposed of it. The authorities realised because she had been for certain hospital appointments and no birth was registered; they went and investigated, and she said that she had had a legitimate abortion. It turned out that, when they searched her computer, because it was 2012, she had got pills from Mumbai and took those pills, and her husband knew nothing of what was happening. It is important to note that she was sentenced for eight years, and that is important particularly in relation to the amendments that seek to retrospectively pardon people. How will those connected to that lady, grandparents and potentially her husband, feel if that was no longer an offence because it was not controversial at the time? That is what we are dealing with here, that it would no longer be a crime at 39 weeks.
Having listened through many hours of debate now, I am unsure about the clarity and process of the law here. We have seen much suggestion that the pills by post are causing more investigations and heard about the nature of those investigations, but we need more detail and more evidence to legislate properly. Many noble Lords have tried to predict, “Women’s behaviour will do this” or “Women’s behaviour will do that” or “Things on the street”, as the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, said, “will be different”. But we do not know that because we have not had that really important pre-legislative process.
We have also had evidence that there is, in fact, sex-selective abortion going on, and we have had no equality impact assessment. I think that is a big flaw if we legislate on this. However, we do know from evidence in New Zealand that there could be an increase in late-term abortions, and we know that there have been more emergency calls as a result of more complications when the pills are taken after the 10-week window.
One point that has not been covered is that, obviously, the ambulance crew are often the first people through the door, so I would be grateful if the Minister could actually give some clarity and restate what the law is for those emergency providers faced with that situation. Concepts like birth, born alive and the first breath are not that easy to apply in this scenario. If you look at the Medical Law Review, there is a very interesting article by Elizabeth Romanis, in the winter 2020 edition, looking at advances in medical technology which mean that you can now operate on a foetus and there is a potential for having artificial wombs so this legal personality at the first breath might not be so easy to apply. Do the ambulance crew need to use all of their professional skills to ensure that that baby is born alive or not?
Also, the Nursing and Midwifery Order 2001, in Article 45, is very strict, unless it is a matter urgency or necessity, to ensure that people who are not medically qualified do not intervene in the birth of a baby; it is actually a criminal offence to do that. So I think we need to know from the Minister the boundary there as well, if there might be people with the woman as she is taking the pills in a late-stage abortion.
Finally, many noble Lords have said that this only had 46 minutes of Back-Bench time in the other place. I have pondered whether there is an opposite to the word “filibuster”, because I think it applies to this particular situation. It is a sadness now, I think, when one looks at Parliament’s granting of conscience issues to MPs and Peers, that somehow we have ended up in the position where these issues have lacked the pre-legislative scrutiny and consultation that are vital to ensure that we pass good laws. I do not think this one is fit, at the moment, without the involvement of the public in consultation, a White Paper, et cetera.