Abortion Kills One and Hurts Another
Proposals to Make Abortion Legal up to Birth in Scotland Must Be Rejected
Proposals to Make Abortion Legal up to Birth in Scotland Must Be Rejected
With the Scotland Act 2016, powers to legislate on abortion have now been devolved to Holyrood. As such, Engender, Amnesty Scotland, NUS Scotland, Scottish Women’s Aid and other groups published a report recommending that Scotland completely decriminalise abortion.
This rhetoric which talks about abortion as “the only type of healthcare in which this criminalisation exists” effectively masks the reality of what is actually being proposed. Namely, that abortion should be made legal throughout all nine months of pregnancy on demand. Complete decriminalisation means allowing abortion up until the moment of birth; it means allowing late term abortion whereby a child is given a lethal injection in the womb and the child’s mother subsequently gives birth to a dead baby; it means permitting in law the killing of a child well past the point of viability.
It means permitting the deeply misoginistic practice of allowing abortion because the child is a girl...
Of course, any abortion at any stage is a great tragedy but these proposals are particularly shocking and can only seriously be proposed in complete isolation from the actual reality of what this procedure involves.
These group are also urging the Scottish government to remove the legal requirement for two doctors to approve an abortion, and to allow women to perform abortions in their own homes by taking abortion pills.
The requirement for two doctors to approve an abortion is not only supposed to act as some minimal protection of the life of the unborn child but also acts as a protection for women to ensure that, among other things, they fully understand what abortion involves and are not being coerced into it. The removal of this requirement simple increases the risk for the most vulnerable women seeking abortions.
The Scottish Government has said that there are no plans to change abortion law in Scotland and we need to do our part to ensure that the abortion law does change for the better.
http://www.christianconcern.com/our-concerns/abortion/call-for-scotland-...
https://www.engender.org.uk/content/publications/Our-bodies-our-choice--...
http://womenhurt.ie/?page_id=150
http://righttolife.org.uk/news/rtl-oppose-extremist-and-out-of-touch-bpa...
Sign this petition now!
Proposals to Make Abortion Legal up to Birth in Scotland Must Be Rejected
Dear Shona Robison MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport,
I write to you in regard to proposals from Amnesty Scotland, NUS Scotland and others to decriminalise abortion in Scotland.
This is an extremist, ideologically driven agenda and I am sure you know the dangers of this deeply discriminatory proposal which proposes to allow abortion up until birth for any reason.
1. This is a shocking form of discrimination against the smallest and most vulnerable
2. This proposal would allow the disgustingly misogynistic practice of sex-selective abortion where baby girls can be and are killed because they are girls;
3. This proposal represents a serious threat to conscience rights for doctors in Scotland;
Furthermore, this agenda is hopelessly out of touch with public opinion. In October 2014, a ComRes poll found that 84% of people favoured a total and explicit ban on abortions based on the baby’s sex, including 85% of women. Another ComRes poll in March that same year found a similar figure, with 86% of people favouring a total ban (including 88% of women). This latter poll also found that 89% (92% of women) agreed that a woman requesting an abortion should always be seen in person by a qualified doctor, and 76% (78% of women) agreed that the health of women considering an abortion would be put at risk unless the doctors who sign abortion request forms had also seen the patient.
Rather than pursuing these proposals, I urge you to visit womenhurt.ie and read some of the testimonies of women who have had abortions so that you can see the profound hurt and misery which has been caused to these women because of their abortions.
In response to these testimonies, to the side of the abortion debate which is rarely told, we must provide real help and support for women in crisis pregnancies. I call on you therefore, as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, to support organisations which offer practical, financial and emotional care to women in crisis pregnancies, and in doing so, promote a more humane and compassionate response to crisis pregnancy than the extremist proposals offered by some.
