TUV leader Jim Allister slams MPs who voted to allow babies 'who could survive outside the womb to be destroyed without consequence'
It is a "moral outrage" that MPs voted this week to "allow a baby who could survive outside the womb to be legally destroyed without consequence", TUV leader Jim Allister said.
On Wednesday MPs gave a landslide vote to remove criminal sanctions against women in England and Wales who illegally end their own pregnancies.
The vote came through Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi’s amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, which was supported by MPs 379 to 137.
Women who terminate their pregnancy outside the law, for example after 24 weeks, will no longer be at risk of prosecution – depending on how the Lords treat the bill.
Ms Antoniazzi previously assured MPs the current 24-week limit would remain, abortions would still require the approval and signatures of two doctors, and that healthcare professionals “acting outside the law and abusive partners using violence or poisoning to end a pregnancy would still be criminalised, as they are now”.
However, after the Commons vote on Tuesday night, pro-choice groups said they would now work to remove the remaining sanctions also.
Mr Allister said: “The decision by the House of Commons to remove all remaining legal protections for unborn children was a dark day for the UK.
"In voting to decriminalise abortion at any stage of pregnancy, MPs have abandoned their moral duty in the most chilling way.
"If approved, it will now be possible, without fear of legal consequence, to end the life of a fully developed, viable child even up to the moment of birth.
“This is not a victory for rights - it is a victory for a culture of death. It is a moral outrage that a baby who could survive outside the womb can now be legally destroyed without consequence.”
But pro-choice campaigner Goretti Horgan strongly supported the proposed changes.
She added: “We can only welcome any move at Westminster to end the police investigations and subsequent prosecutions of women there who caused their own abortions outside the regulations of the 1967 Abortion Act.”