Pro-life leader slams UK bill to protect women from long-term abortion lawsuits
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INTERMEDIATE: The leader of an international pro-life movement is criticizing a bill being considered in the United Kingdom that would protect women from being held liable for abortions until birth.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, the chief executive of 40 Days for Life Shawn Carney said that the British lawmakers are following the efforts of the Democrats in the US to seek to allow abortion in these cases, which he described as “absolutely absurd.”
“They didn’t really want this,” Carney said. “In general, Europe is more strict on abortion than the United States. Most European countries regulate abortion up to 12 weeks. England has 16 weeks. In some cases, they take it late, up to 24 weeks. But now they want to have an abortion at every 40 weeks. And this just seems wrong.”
Carney said he feared the bill, if enacted, “will start a negative trend across Europe.”
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A bill is being considered in the UK that would protect women from criminal liability for having abortions to terminate their pregnancy until birth. (Wiktor Szymanowicz/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Crime and Policing Bill includes a provision, Section 208, which would remove criminal penalties for women in England and Wales who terminate their pregnancy at any time. The bill is now in the final stage in the House of Lords and is expected to receive a vote from Wednesday. If the House of Lords approves this clause, the bill will return to the House of Commons for any final changes before receiving Royal Assent to become law.
Under this provision, a woman will no longer be investigated, arrested or prosecuted for terminating her pregnancy at any stage of pregnancy, although the current legal limit for multiple abortions in England and Wales is 24 weeks.
Although women who terminate their pregnancies will not face criminal charges, doctors and others who assist in abortions after 24 weeks without the need for medical treatment may still face prosecution.
As lawmakers consider Section 208, several amendments have been offered, including removing it entirely, changing it to exclude late-term abortions and adding an in-person consultation requirement to eliminate so-called “pill-by-mail” services.
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Under this provision, a woman will no longer be investigated, arrested or prosecuted for terminating her pregnancy at any stage of pregnancy. (Wiktor Szymanowicz/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Carney said the last two amendments should not be accepted, saying the clause appears to represent a “will to kill.”
“I think it’s crazy,” he said. “I know what they’re trying to do, but you need to fight the laws that say we don’t deliver babies at 40 weeks. The left built a whole movement to be able to live outside the womb effectively. Then, as science and medicine progressed, the efficiency changed because we couldn’t do more with unborn babies. So they said at first it was 24 weeks, and then some 22 weeks said some 22 weeks. weeks. Nobody ever said it was 40 weeks, of course, you can live outside of the uterus, it seems, at 40 weeks.
“I understand the idea of trying to make a legal agreement,” he continued. “But the compromise would be that you people have lost your minds. You want to abort the baby the day before it’s born. And it’s not medically necessary. The baby is perfectly viable … so I think that’s how you should defeat these bills.”
Carney also said that “people don’t want to celebrate abortion” and “certainly they don’t want to brag about how they can get an abortion up to 40 weeks,” adding that opponents of the UK bill “don’t have a reasonable response” to attempts to allow any abortion until birth.
He added that while most people are not “monsters” who want to have abortions at 40 weeks, removing the legal obligation for women at that time would make abortion more socially acceptable.
“I think what it’s doing is taking a little bit of the shame out of abortion at 8, 10, 12, 16 weeks, because typically what we’ve seen in the US is you have states that say, hey, you’re going to have an abortion at every 40 weeks, what they’re doing is, okay, okay, I’m not only bad at 1 week, it’s not only bad. It’s only 12 weeks, it’s only 16 weeks,” Carney said.
The bill is now in the final stage in the House of Lords and is expected to receive a vote from Wednesday. (Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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“It’s not that you’re going to see a lot of abortions at 40 weeks. It’s the idea that an abortion is not a big deal. You can do it the day before the birth, so it’s acceptable to a lot of people,” he continued.
“People are not monsters,” he added. “The monsters are writing these bills, which are liberal white people who say, you know, we need to have an abortion the day before your birthday. And a lot of people look around at the party and say that person is clinically insane.”
The left “just got married to this,” Carney said.
“They believe you need unrestricted abortion at all times to be a free and just society,” Carney said. “But nobody really needs that medically.”
