In a recent Prime Minister’s questions, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab has said he did not believe there was a “strong case for change” on the abortion issue, and has rejected calls for a right to access an abortion being included in the UK’s new Bill of Rights.
Calls to include abortion rights in the UK Bill of Rights follow the recent overturning of Roe v Wade in the US. But Raab commented that the legality of abortion in the UK was “settled”, following the US ruling and that putting a “woman’s right to choose” into the UK’s new bill of rights would risk access to abortions being challenged in the courts.
“What I wouldn’t want to do is find ourselves in the US position where this is being litigated through the courts rather than settled as it is now settled by honourable members in this House” said Raab.
Labour MP for Canterbury, Rose Duffield, said during Prime Minister’s questions that Raab should “send a clear signal, as some of his cabinet colleagues have done this week, that Britain respects the rights of women” by accepting a “cross-party amendment to his forthcoming bill of rights which enshrines a women’s right to choose in law”.
Lord Steel of Aikwood, the former Liberal Party leader who developed abortion laws in the UK, said decisions over the legality of abortion should be made by “parliaments, not the courts”.
Currently in England and Wales abortion is not a right, except where two doctors agree it would be necessary. In Northern Ireland however, abortions are enshrined in law.
Further calls from Pro-choice campaigners and the British Medical Association have also been made for regulations on abortions to be removed from criminal law, this would mean that instead of abortion being a crime for which there are some exceptions, abortion would be lawful except in exceptional circumstances.
