Plea for tighter rules on abortion turned down by Hewitt
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The head of the Catholic Church in Britain, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, came away empty-handed yesterday after meeting the Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, to lobby for tighter abortion laws.
Ms Hewitt refused to contemplate legislation to change an 18-year-old law which makes abortion legal up until the 24th week of pregnancy. More seriously for the anti-abortion campaign, the Government has also decided it is not going to arrange for a free vote by MPs. Instead, it has left it up to opponents of the 1988 law to find a sympathetic MP prepared to tread the difficult path of introducing a private member's Bill. The Labour MP Geraldine Smith, a leading campaigner against the current abortion laws, attacked the Government for being "ostrich-like".
"I am very disappointed because the Government knows that private member's Bills usually go nowhere. I would have hoped that the Government would have allowed time for a vote ... because I think they are out of step with public opinion. It's just an ostrich mentality," she said.
"I think the public wants a review of the law because of the scientific and medical advances there have been in 18 years. This goes beyond the Catholic Church. Late abortions are particularly traumatic, and there comes a point where, because of medical advances, the baby can survive outside the womb."
The Cardinal and two other senior figures from the Catholic Church met Ms Hewitt to press their case for reducing the 24-week time limit. "People know, perhaps instinctively, that the goodness of a society is known not by its wealth but by the way in which it treats the most vulnerable of human beings, the ones with little or no claim on public attention. Millions of people, especially women, would like to see a review of the current law," the Cardinal later said.
But the Health Secretary reiterated the Government's position. She said: "It has long been the parliamentary convention that proposals for changes in the law on abortion have come from backbench members and that decisions are made on the basis of free votes. We believe this should still be the case and the Government has no plans to change the law on abortion."
In 1988, the Conservative government organised a free vote on abortion which resulted in the present 24-week limit, supported by Tony Blair and most members of the present Labour Cabinet.
In practice, terminations that late in pregnancy are rare. Department of Health figures show that 88 per cent are carried out within the first 13 weeks, and 60 per cent within the first 10 weeks. But the number of women living in England and Wales who opt for an abortion has risen. In 2004, there were 185,400 - an increase of 2.1 per cent on the previous year.
Anti-abortion campaigners have made one small political advance. It is probable that a committee of MPs and peers will hold a formal inquiry into the number of late abortions and the most recent scientific and medical evidence.
The case for an inquiry is being pushed by the Labour MP Ian Gibson, a former chairman of the Commons Science and Technology Committee, who opposesa change in the law but believes the issue needs to be re-examined.
"Given the public interest that is being shown around this issue, if the Government does set up a joint committee, I am prepared to ask people to nominate themselves," he said yesterday. Sir David Steel, who introduced the 1967 law that legalised abortion in Britain, also backed the idea of a parliamentary inquiry.