Petition to: Jeremy Cobryn - Leader of the Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn: Scrap pledge to introduce abortion up to birth for any reason to the UK
Jeremy Corbyn: Scrap pledge to introduce abortion up to birth for any reason to the UK
In their recently released manifesto, The Labour Party have pledged to introduce abortion, on-demand, for any reason, up to birth to the UK.
The manifesto outlines (page 48) that the party is seeking to ‘decriminalise abortions’. Full decriminalisation of abortion involves repealing sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act along with the Infant Life Preservation Act.
The Abortion Act 1967, sets out exceptions to this underlying legislation which provides a set of criteria outlining when these acts can legally be ignored. Under these exceptions over 200,000 abortions took place in England and Wales last year.
Within the Abortion Act there is a strict time limit of 24 weeks for abortions that are performed under section 1(1)(a) of the Act. If sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act and the Infant Life Preservation Act were repealed, the Abortion Act would become redundant, and so would the 24-week time limit.
Repealing sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act along with the Infant Life Preservation Act would scrap the current 24-week time limit for abortion - and abortion would be available on-demand, for any reason, up to birth. The upper time limit would be completely abolished.
This would be the most extreme abortion law in the world. The change would position England and Wales drastically away from the European Union, where the most common abortion time limit among EU countries is 12 weeks.
Pro-abortion commentators have applauded the decision, making it clear that full ‘decriminalisation’ would scrap our current legal time allowing for abortion to be available for any reason up to birth.
The proposal is completely out of line with where women stand on the issue. Polling from Savanta ComRes on whether time limits for abortion should be increased showed that only 1% of women wanted the time limit to be increased right through to birth, in contrast to 70% of women who favoured a reduction in time limits.
Please sign the petition to urge Jeremy Corbyn to scrap the pledge to introduce an extreme and inhumane abortion regime to the UK.
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