The UK’s largest abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) was behind calls for general election candidates to pledge to introduce abortion up to birth.
According to reports, the ‘my pledge, my choice’ campaign was launched at the end of November to deliberately target the political candidates and get them to pledge to introduce abortion on demand, for any reason, up to birth.
The pledge included a commitment to, ‘Support further moves to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales in line with previous cross-party parliamentary bills and amendments, including the Reproductive Health (Access to Terminations) Bill 2017’.
In the run-up to the election, nearly 400 prominent Anglicans signed a petition against party pledges to decriminalise abortions and to extend the existing 24-week limit.
The Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats both made campaign pledges to dramatically widen the law on abortion if they won the general election.
But vicars, members of General Synod, youth workers and academics from the Church of England (CofE) put their names to an open letter published in The Times. It called on senior bishops in the CofE to speak out against the proposals.
The Lib Dem manifesto stated that the party would, ‘Decriminalise abortion across the UK while retaining the existing 24-week limit and legislate for access to abortion facilities within Northern Ireland’.
Meanwhile, the Labour party had commented, ‘We will uphold women’s reproductive rights and decriminalise abortions’, and ‘Women in Northern Ireland should have access to abortions in Northern Ireland’.
