EXCLUSIVE: The leader of an international pro-life group is criticizing a bill being considered in Britain that would protect women from criminal liability for abortions up to birth.
“They didn’t really lobby for this,” Carney said. “Typically, Europe is much more conservative on abortion than the United States. Most European countries regulate abortion up to 12 weeks. England has 16. In some cases they do that late, up to 24 weeks. But now they want abortion for all 40 weeks. And this seems to have come out of nowhere.”
Carney said he fears this bill, if passed into law, would “set off an unfortunate trend across Europe.”
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A bill is being considered in Britain that would protect women from criminal liability for abortions to end their own pregnancies until birth. (Wiktor Szymanowicz/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Crime and Policing Bill contains a provision, Clause 208, which would abolish criminal penalties for women in England and Wales who terminate their own pregnancies at any time. The bill is now in its final stages in the House of Lords and is expected to be put to a vote as early as Wednesday. If the House of Lords approves the clause, the bill will be sent back to the House of Commons for any final amendments before it receives royal assent to become law.
Under this provision, a woman can no longer be investigated, arrested or prosecuted for terminating her own pregnancy during any pregnancy, even though the current standard legal threshold for most abortions in England and Wales is 24 weeks.
While women who terminate their pregnancies would be exempt from criminal liability, doctors and others who assist with an abortion after 24 weeks without medical necessity could still face prosecution.
As lawmakers consider Clause 208, several amendments have been offered, including scrapping it entirely, amending it to exclude late-term abortions and adding an in-person requirement for medical consultations to end so-called “pills-by-mail” services.
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Under this provision, a woman can no longer be investigated, arrested or prosecuted for terminating her own pregnancy during any pregnancy. (Wiktor Szymanowicz/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Carney argued that the last two amendments should still be unacceptable, stating that the clause appears to represent “a desire to kill.”
“I think it’s crazy,” he said. “I know what they’re trying to do, but you have to fight the laws by saying we don’t abort children after 40 weeks. The left has built a whole movement around being able to survive outside the womb with viability. As science and medicine progressed, viability changed because we could do a lot for unborn children. So at first they said it was 24 weeks, and then it was 22 weeks. Some say it’s 20 weeks. Others say it’s still that way. 22 weeks. No one ever said it was 40 weeks. Of course, they all said you can survive outside the womb.
“I understand the idea of trying to reach a legal compromise,” he continued. “But the trade-off would be that you’ve lost your minds. You want to abort a child the day before he or she is born. And it’s not medically necessary. The baby is completely viable… so I think you should avoid these bills.”
Carney also said that “people don’t want to celebrate abortion” and “certainly don’t want to brag about how they can have an abortion up to 40 weeks,” adding that opponents of the British bill “lack common sense” over attempts to allow abortion up to birth.
He added that while most people are not “monsters” who seek abortion after 40 weeks, removing legal liability for women at that point could make abortion more socially acceptable.
“I think it takes away a little bit of the stigma of abortions at 8, 10, 12, 16 weeks, because what we’ve generally seen in the U.S. is that there are states that say, ‘Hey, you’re going to have an abortion for the whole 40 weeks.’ What they do is say, ‘Okay, I’m not that bad. My abortion isn’t that bad because it’s only at 10 weeks, it’s only at 12 weeks.’ weeks, it’s not until 16 weeks,” Carney said.
The bill is now in its final stages in the House of Lords and is expected to be put to a vote as early as Wednesday. (Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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“It’s not that you’re going to see a lot of abortions after 40 weeks. It’s the mentality that abortion isn’t a big deal. You can even do it the day before birth, and so it’s more acceptable to most people,” he continued.
“People are not monsters,” he added. “The monsters write these bills, and they’re typically very liberal white people who say, you know what, we should be able to get an abortion the day before your birthday. And most people look around at a party and say that person is clinically insane.”
The left “just got married to this,” Carney said.
“They believe that you need unfettered abortion at all times in order to have a free and just society,” Carney said. “But no one really needs that medically.”
