Abortion (Disability Equality) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Baroness Massey of Darwen

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 24th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak against the amendment and support the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, in bringing the Bill forward. The noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, who is sitting in front of her, will not be surprised that we take a diametrically opposed view of this and not for the first time in our lives. They will recall that the reason I left their party was their proposition that abortion should become party policy rather than a conscience question. I have always been saddened that this issue should be politicised. Diametrically opposed views can be sincerely held for perfectly good reasons.

The noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, and the noble Lord, Lord Winston, have spoken as doctors. I am only the humble father of a doctor but I had the chance earlier this week to speak to two eminent doctors, one a former president of one of the royal colleges and the other a former president of the BMA, both of whom are opposed to the amendment. For one this is because of the danger of misdiagnosis. She gave me the specific example of a baby whose mother had been told it had a fatal foetal disability, but this did not turn out to be the case when it was born. The other said that it is far better to go ahead with the pregnancy and for the baby to be delivered in order to help the mother at that stage. I will come back to that point in a moment, because it is borne out by the guidance of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the submission it made on this subject in 2010.

We can disagree about these things, but let us at least accept that there is a disagreement. I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Winston, had been able to bring forward his amendment in Committee, when we would have been able to have a more robust argument and discussion about it. It is strange that this amendment should be laid before your Lordships’ House at 24 hours’ notice before Report. Since it has been, I have done my best to discuss it with others who know more about these things than I do. In 1990, when a Member of another place, I moved my only amendment in 18 years in the Commons on which there was an equality of votes. Mr Speaker Weatherill—who became Lord Weatherill—had to use his casting vote for the status quo. He was one of my two sponsors when I became a Member of your Lordships’ House and I know through subsequent discussions with him how disturbed he was that he was not able to follow his conscience that day but had to follow precedent in upholding the status quo. My amendment sought to ensure that, in the 1990 amendment to the 1967 Abortion Act, the nature of the disability would be placed on the green form authorising the abortion. I was challenged by Harriet Harman who said that it was scaremongering for Professor John Finnis, one of the country’s leading experts on jurisprudence, to suggest that the legislation as drafted could lead to abortion on the grounds of cleft palate. As noble Lords know from the figures that have been produced, there have been abortions post-24 weeks’ gestation on the grounds of cleft palate. Notwithstanding the examples the noble Lord gave a few moments ago, 90% of all babies diagnosed with Down’s syndrome in this country are now routinely aborted.

I have never described the Department of Health as being responsible for eugenics and I would never do that, nor do I believe that doctors in this country are. The noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, has said that society slides into eugenics when these things become normative. Therefore, I hope that when the noble Lord replies to the debate, he will tell us exactly what the list of disabilities is that cannot be diagnosed before 24 weeks’ gestation. Despite my own strongly held views about the law—indeed, 8 million abortions have taken place in this country since 1967, there are around 600 every working day and one in five pregnancies is now ended on those grounds—this Bill is not about that. This Bill is about equality legislation and discrimination, and whether a child with a disability should be treated differently from an able-bodied child.

I simply point out to your Lordships that there is a certain irony, as the very last words spoken by the Minister at the Dispatch Box in the previous debate on a Bill about car parking were about ensuring equality of opportunity for disabled people to be able to park in car parking spaces. All Members of your Lordships’ House have properly campaigned over the years on the rights of disabled people, and have a huge reputation in this country for asserting those rights. Is there not an inconsistency if we campaign for ramps to be attached to public buildings in this country but say that it would be better that someone with a disability had not been born in the first place? What sort of message does that send?

I do not think that people like me can put forward arguments such as this if we are just anti things. One of the things in which I got involved in my own city of Liverpool was the building of the first baby hospice in the country, Zoe’s Place, of which I continue to be a patron, and others have since been opened. It was built specifically to help mothers in this situation. You have to be positively for the unborn child but for the mother as well in these tragic and very difficult circumstances.

I admire medicine when it is at its best. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, and I sometimes disagree. Nevertheless, he knows that I admire hugely a lot of the work that he has done. When noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, are able to develop—as they are doing—surgery in utero to deal with things such as spina bifida, that is good science and good medicine marching hand in hand with good ethics. However, if I were to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for instance, that I was in favour of abortion beyond 24 weeks for reasons such as gender, race or—if it could be diagnosed—orientation, what would your Lordships say to me? I hope that they would rebuke me. That is why I argue that we should treat disability in precisely the same way as those issues.

I said that I would return to what the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists had to say. There were two things, one of which shocked me, when I read the details of what happens in late abortion of this kind. This is the college’s description, not mine:

“Intracardiac potassium chloride … is the recommended method to ensure fetal asystole. After aspiration of fetal blood to confirm correct placement of the needle, 2-3 ml strong … is injected into a cardiac ventricle. A repeat injection may be required”.


It goes on to describe other ways of doing this. This is a late abortion. Babies have been born and lived from 23 weeks’ gestation, so this is beyond viability that we are talking about. The college also states:

“Most women will be unaware that, within the NHS, medical abortion induced by drugs is the procedure usually offered after 14 weeks of gestation. The prospect of labouring to deliver a dead fetus will be difficult for many and discussions about the procedure will require sensitive handling by experienced staff. Although the prospect of labour in these circumstances is especially daunting, some women gain some satisfaction from having given birth and have welcomed the chance to … hold their baby”.


The college goes on to talk about the options that need to be offered for pain relief,

“and whether the woman might want to see the baby and have mementoes such as photographs and hand and footprints … She will … be made aware of information from a postmortem … These discussions are likely to be distressing for the woman and her partner”.

So let us be very clear that this is a tragedy for everyone involved.

I turn to the noble Lord’s amendment. It states that,

“there is a high probability that the fetus will die”.

We are drafting legislation here. What does this mean? Is the probability 99.99990%, or 50%? How should a high probability be objectively defined in law? Why is that not specified in the wording of the amendment? I am very disturbed by the fact that the noble Lord’s amendment says that you may go on to carry out these procedures “shortly after delivery”, when the baby has been born alive. Is this a matter of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or, arguably, even years? It needs to be clearly defined in law, otherwise it will be interpreted far too widely. That is why the amendment should have been brought forward in Committee, when we could have had a proper discussion about it. However, I hope that the amendment will be resisted and that the Bill in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, will be given a safe passage so that it will have a chance to go forward and there can be a proper debate about it in another place.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I intended to speak much later but I have to emphasise something which the noble Lord, Lord Lester, said, that we often forget. This is not and should not be a political issue. It is often about the life and death of women. The remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for whom I have the deepest respect, about gender and race in comparison to disability, is unfortunate, to say the least.

We have to remember the history of abortion in this country. At one time, women who could not obtain an abortion for legal reasons resorted to what were called back-street abortions or self-abortions. Those were dangerous and often humiliating. Do we really want to go back to that? The Bill, if it is carried, could mean going back to that for women. I suspect that if our laws were changed to deny abortions at any stage we could see women’s lives put in danger, and that would be completely abhorrent. For those reasons and others, I cannot support the Bill.

I have the deepest respect for the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, but this is an emotive issue, and much has been said already. First, on disability, I read something recently by the disability rights advocate, Professor Tom Shakespeare, who himself has a disability. He said that prenatal diagnosis is not straightforwardly eugenic or discriminatory:

“Nor should we interpret a decision to have … a termination as expressing disrespect or discrimination towards disabled people. Choices … are not incompatible with disability rights”.


I agree with him.

Our laws on abortion, which we are fortunate to have, have been well debated and carefully constructed. They are supported by professional bodies and by the vast majority of the general public. Women overwhelmingly support testing for abnormality in a foetus, knowing that the result may cause them immense distress and difficult decisions.

We know that some conditions cannot be diagnosed within 24 weeks. In fact, some can be diagnosed only within the third trimester. I find the Bill quite punitive. We know that parents find a decision on abortion difficult and distressing. They think not only of themselves —they are not being selfish—but of the whole family, possibly including children who have already been born. Such parents need support, advice and often grief counselling. It is not a simple matter. Medical services take account of this distress—my noble friend Lord Winston spoke eloquently about that—and I know some parents who have been advised and helped to hold a funeral for the aborted baby.

While this is an emotive Bill, we have to consider the rights of women and of the family, and think about the impact that it might have in particular on women who used to go for those back-street abortions.

Education Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Baroness Massey of Darwen

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 71, 72 and 73. First, I thank the Minister for his conscientious response to the last stage of this Bill. He has sent out a number of letters explaining the policy, which I found very useful. Indeed, the letter he sent to me referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, gave some reassurances on the amendments I am going to speak to.

My main concern is that some measures proposed by the Bill may further fragment education on the basis of religion or belief. I have serious concerns about how the Bill makes voluntary-aided faith schools the easiest type of school to set up. I am also concerned about voluntary-controlled schools converting to academies, then being able to choose to increase their religious discrimination in admissions.

Currently, when a proposer wishes, for whatever reason, to establish a new foundation, voluntary-controlled or aided, or foundation special school outside of a competition, they need the consent of the Secretary of State. Following consent, the local authority runs a consultation on the proposals. The Bill, if passed in its current form, will change this, as I understand it, so that consent from the Secretary of State would no longer be needed for voluntary-aided schools, but it would still be needed for foundation, voluntary-controlled and foundation special schools.

I see some problems here. Almost all voluntary-aided schools—99 per cent of them—are faith schools. Admissions are determined by the school, which can discriminate against all pupils on religious grounds. In voluntary-controlled schools, local authorities set admissions and only about a quarter of local authorities have chosen to allow some or all of their voluntary-controlled schools to discriminate religiously, either in whole or in part.

Mr Gove has made it clear that he wishes to make it easier to set up voluntary-aided schools, which can discriminate. Such a school can use a religious test in appointing, remunerating or promoting all teachers, and even some non-teaching staff. In voluntary-controlled and foundation schools, this is only one-fifth of the teachers. The religious organisation sets the religious education curriculum in accordance with the tenets of the faith of such a school. In voluntary-controlled and foundation schools, the locally agreed syllabus is usually taught, which is not confessional to a particular faith. The religious organisation appoints more than half the governors there. In voluntary-controlled and many foundation schools, it is a quarter. While I thank the Minister again for his letter, my concerns are still not diminished and I shall watch developments on this issue very carefully.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, I hope that the Minister, when he comes to reply to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, will think carefully before agreeing with the premises which have been laid before your Lordships' House this afternoon. In the case of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, I always feel some trepidation in opposing anything that he says, because he has been a noble friend in many respects for a long time. He knows that at 17 years of age I said—and I would never resile on it—that if ever I found myself elected to the other place, I hoped that I would be a Member of Parliament like him. I have always admired the positions that the noble Lord takes on many issues, and continue to do so.

Yet the noble Lord knows that a debate has also been under way in his party for a long time about faith schools per se. Indeed, it was the then Education spokesman in another place, Mr Don Foster MP, who said—I believe these were his exact words—that in an ideal world there would be no schools of a religious character. I know that the noble Lord agrees with that proposition, but it is one I fundamentally disagree with. I suppose I should declare an interest as someone who has been educated in faith schools and whose own children have gone through faith schools. I am also the governor of a faith school and I passionately believe that those who wish to opt for that kind of education for themselves or for their children should be free to do so.

There is not the problem, as the noble Lord suggested, of such schools being undersubscribed; they are of course oversubscribed. That is the problem in many parts of the country. I would say this to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, on the possibility of creating new faith schools. In parts of London there are large faith communities—for instance, of Polish people or people from the African and Asian communities—and in the Borough of Richmond, for instance, a petition has been laid before the council urging the creation of a new faith school. To restrict the opportunity to do that would be to deprive us of something special.

This is an issue that was addressed in 1944, when perhaps the greatest of all social legislation in the last century went through Parliament. I think it would probably have united most of us. The then Catholic Archbishop of Westminster was in the Strangers’ Gallery for the Third Reading proceedings on that Bill, when RA Butler brought before the House the provisions that allowed for the state to contribute towards the creation of Catholic schools. The Catholic community of that time, as Members of your Lordships' House will be well aware, was mainly an immigrant community —many were from the west of Ireland, as my late mother was. Those were schools for impoverished communities. Indeed, Archbishop Griffin sent RA Butler a copy of Butler’s Lives of the Saints, so pleased was he with the resolution of the House in regard to that legislation.

Around 2,500 schools have been created in the years that have passed, mainly though the efforts of those local communities, and they have enriched our education system. I urge your Lordships not to tamper with the settlements that have been there ever since 1944: that these schools are normally over rather than undersubscribed and that there are already sufficient safeguards in place to ensure that denomination provision is not increased or decreased where it is inappropriate. It is also worth saying, before I conclude, that figures issued recently show that, certainly in the Catholic sector, around one-third of the children in those schools do not come from Catholic backgrounds and there are waiting lists for many of these schools up and down the country. This demonstrates that the ethos of those schools is something that many parents are opting for. That is something that we should celebrate, not in any way try to undermine.