I never had high hopes for this Labour government. But I must admit I underestimated just how dire things could get. I never imagined hundreds of Labour MPs would audaciously masquerade moral regression as a form of progress. Yet here we are. On Tuesday, Tonia Antoniazzi’s amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill passed with minimal fanfare, after only two hours of debate and 379 MPs nodding along like bobbleheads.
This abomination of an amendment means a woman can now do anything to her unborn child, right up to the moment of birth, without legal consequence. Absolutely nothing – not deceit, not concealment, not even a late-term abortion of a viable baby – will make her criminally liable, as long as the foetus is her own. So, cases like that of Carla Foster, who aborted her daughter at 32 weeks, will no longer be subject to legal penalty. The foetus, however developed or viable, no longer has a right to life.
In a nation beset by crumbling infrastructure, anaemic economic growth, ballooning public debt, sputtering services, and unmanageable immigration, is this the hill our politicians have chosen to fight on? A morally deranged bill dressed up as a victory for women’s rights? You honestly couldn’t make it up.
What’s worse is the twisted logic behind it. Because the NHS botched its pandemic abortion policy by sending abortifacient pills in the post without medical oversight, MPs decided the answer was not to reinstate clinical safeguards, but to eliminate legal accountability altogether.
Before Covid, in-person appointments meant midwives could assess the stage of pregnancy. If someone was six months along, it was usually obvious. But during lockdown, remote prescriptions replaced physical check-ups. Women simply reported how far along they were, with no scans, no verification, and no questions asked.
That’s how Carla Foster got the pills she used to end her 32-week pregnancy.
One would think that the sensible solution would be to reintroduce face-to-face consultations. But when Tory MP Caroline Johnson proposed exactly that, it was rejected by the very MPs who just voted to decriminalise late-term abortions. It’s hard not to conclude that common sense and conscience have both left the building.
This bill is the product of naïve, progressive politics – the kind that cannot fathom evil unless it’s wearing a suit and tie.
The idea a woman might knowingly end the life of a viable, healthy baby is so uncomfortable that it’s dismissed as unthinkable. But unthinkable does not mean impossible. And governance should concern itself with worst-case scenarios, not utopian delusions. Shame on every MP who voted for this moral calamity.
Labour MPs argue that the bill doesn’t legalise late-term abortions. It just shields mothers from prosecution while continuing to criminalise doctors who perform them. But this is a contradiction in terms.
You cannot simultaneously claim a procedure is illegal, but that the person who initiates and carries it out isn’t culpable. It’s a green light for unsafe, DIY abortions, for coat hangers and bathtub tragedies – as long as they’re self-administered.
And behind all this is a maddening cognitive dissonance. We live in a world where a 12-week-old foetus is celebrated with ultrasound pictures and gender reveal parties. But in another context, it can be discarded in the name of “healthcare”. The difference isn’t biological. It’s emotional.
A foetus doesn’t magically become a human being because it is wanted. It already is one. And we all know it.
Some, like Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer, have taken to shouting their abortions from rooftops as if this bill is some bold feminist act. But the legal right to terminate a pregnancy has never been in doubt. Not in Britain, where abortion is already allowed up to 24 weeks, making our laws among the most permissive in Europe.
In fact, many EU countries limit abortion to between 12 and 15 weeks. There have long been calls to reduce our time limit, rather than pushing it further into dystopian territory.
I, for one, would halve it in line with most civilised nations. At 24 weeks, a foetus has eyelashes, fingernails, and can hear sounds. It can blink, respond to touch, and even grasp a finger if born prematurely. A mother can feel it kick. It is not a potential life. It is life.
Of course, abortion is a complex and sensitive issue. Reasonable people can disagree, especially about early terminations. But this amendment blows past nuance and lands squarely in the realm of moral horror. It is not pro-choice. It is pro-death.
If a society can no longer draw the line at killing fully formed babies in the womb, then it is no longer a society worth calling civilised.