Dan Millest

I am deeply disturbed by last night’s debate and vote to decriminalise abortion. The biggest change to abortion law in fifty years passes the Commons after a two hour debate. It is a profound change that leaves the unborn child and women themselves extraordinarily vulnerable. I worry intensely about the unintended consequences of this. The combination of rushed amendments on decriminalisation and pills by post is very dangerous. A woman will now be able to end her pregnancy herself - at any stage including up to birth - without legal consequence. She will also have the means to do it - with tablets that should only be taken before a baby in the womb is at ten weeks gestation, available after a phone or video call with a medic. Dr Caroline Johnson tabled a perfectly sensible amendment, which I supported, to say that abortion pills should only be prescribed after a woman has seen a medic at a clinic - to verify that she is pregnant, at the correct stage and not being coerced (none of which can be established online). She set out the medical reality of an abortion. We should not underplay how extraordinarily distressing a thing it is to lose a baby for a woman - whether wanted or not - and the amplified risk now of that happening at home, alone, with the delivery of a viable child, exposes her to serious medical complications and psychological trauma. The law does not exist simply to punish but to deter. And in deterring, it protects the vulnerable. It being a criminal act for a mother to abort her child at any stage has for decades protected the unborn child but also the woman herself. With that gone, the ability to prosecute coercive or abusive partners is also undermined because the termination being encouraged by them no longer amounts to a criminal offence. All this is aside from any moral duty to the unborn child - something that was skirted over yesterday. Only six people got to speak on our benches. I was lucky that I even got three minutes to have a say. Others did not get called at all. I am grateful that there were some on the Labour benches with the courage to express their worries. Abortion votes are unwhipped so each MP votes according to their conscience not party policy. But Labour MPs - with their huge majority - voted overwhelmingly to decriminalise (291 to 25). 92 Conservatives voted against, with 4 in favour. 2 Lib Dems voted against, 63 in favour. Reform were 4 against and their leader didn’t vote. It is now over to the House of Lords, where I hope this proposal receives the scrutiny it failed to get in the Commons.