Scotland is heading towards 'abortion extremism' - Miriam Cates MP

Former Conservative MP Miriam Cates has expressed serious concerns about Scotland’s move towards «abortion extremism». Her warning follows a November report by the Scottish government’s Abortion Law Reform Expert Group, which is said to contain recommendations that would potentially authorize abortion up to the moment of birth and weaken existing regulatory requirements.

According to Christian Today, the group’s report, which has been criticized for being biased in favor of abortion supporters and a possible conflict of interest, actually recommended allowing abortions right up until birth, as well as eliminating the requirement that two doctors consent to the procedure. In addition, the report completely failed to mention the problem of sex-selective abortion, and actually called for abortion to be recognized as a right.

Cates, writing for The Critic, emphasized that the «Expert Panel» did not include a single pro-life member, and instead included the head of advocacy for BPAS, the largest abortion provider in the UK. «There is a clear conflict of interest here. Abortion providers who stand to benefit from many of the report’s proposals, including near-criminalization, relaxed reporting and monitoring requirements … have been given complete freedom to lobby for legislation that suits their purposes, » she said.

The former MP also noted that the Scottish government tended to take controversial Westminster decisions — such as the vote to legalize assisted suicide, which happened in the same week as the Westminster vote to allow abortion up to birth — and go even further. «Shortly after MPs voted to introduce assisted suicide in the House of Commons, members of the Scottish Parliament voted on second reading for an even more extreme assisted suicide bill that does not include a six-month prognosis requirement in the eligibility criteria for terminally ill people in Scotland, » Kates elaborated.

Similarly, the Scottish version of the Westminster decision, which allows women to terminate pregnancies up to the point of birth, also allows health professionals to perform full-term abortions. This, said Cates, is «a terrible proposal that will put women at risk and also lead to the abortion of viable babies».

BPAS has publicly stated its desire for the Scottish proposals to also become law in England and Wales. Cates warned: ‘When peers vote on the pre-birth abortion amendment in Westminster in the House of Lords in the new year, they will be able to do so with full information. The abortion lobby wants to bring the same extreme proposals they are recommending for Scotland to Westminster: sex-selective abortions, before birth, by the hands of health professionals. Far from progressive, these proposals are barbaric and regressive, and should be rejected on both sides of the border.»

As a reminder, we previously reported that Ireland has seen a rapid increase in the number of followers of Orthodoxy. Over the past two decades, the number of Orthodox Christians in the country has increased almost sevenfold, indicating a significant change in the religious landscape of the Republic.