Abortion (Disability Equality) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-02-24
Topic: Civil Rights
Kevin Shinkwin (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have expressed support for my Bill and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Winston, for his medical lecture on so-called serious foetal anomalies. I address the noble Lord, Lord Winston, with respect but I also address him and all other noble Lords as an equal. I should say at the outset that I totally reject the very premise of this amendment. Other noble Lords have already explained why the amendment is totally inappropriate and, indeed, crassly insensitive, from a Northern Ireland perspective in particular, when it is linked to Amendment 8. I offer a disabled person’s perspective on why it is unacceptable. I have been consistently clear that the purpose of my Bill—a disability rights Bill—is to bring the law as it applies to disability discrimination before birth into line with the laws that your Lordships’ House has already passed to counter disability discrimination after birth Noble Lords will know that I accepted an amendment in Committee for an impact review as a logical amendment to a logical Bill. However, in the context of a Bill which promotes disability equality where discrimination begins before birth, this cynical amendment is not remotely logical. Indeed, it runs counter to the very essence of my Bill. The amendment reinforces discrimination because it singles out even more acutely a particular group for destruction on grounds of disability. It seeks to legitimise their destruction after 24 weeks with terminology that commands no clinical consensus and despite the fact that cell-free foetal DNA can first be detected in maternal blood as early as seven weeks’ gestation, which means that genetic or chromosomal abnormalities are being detected well in advance of 24 weeks. So what justification is there for abortion after 24 weeks on the grounds of so-called serious foetal anomaly Some noble Lords have seen that I recently asked the Department of Health about the number of fatal foetal abnormalities diagnosed in each of the past five years. The answer was that the information is not collected centrally. I followed up and asked about the number of fatal foetal abnormalities diagnosed after 24 weeks in each of the past five years. The answer was the same: the information is not collected centrally. I find that revealing, not because information is being concealed but because it reflects the reality—the truth of the situation. Those noble Lords who were invited to attend a meeting on this issue, which I understand was held somewhere in the House on Wednesday, could be forgiven for thinking that there is some medical authority—some clear medical consensus—behind the definition of "fatal foetal abnormality". There is not because there is not an agreed definition. Indeed, the consensus is that what is considered fatal or life-limiting involves a degree of subjective judgment which is influenced by understandings and by the availability of technology, both of which can change with time. The noble Lords who received the invitation to that meeting might also have got the impression, as was intended by the wording of the invitation, that those 230 disabled babies aborted after 24 weeks in 2015 had all been diagnosed with severe or fatal foetal abnormalities. They were not. Of the 659 babies aborted for the crime of having Down’s syndrome, for example, two were aborted at 25 weeks, one at 26 weeks, one at 28, one at 30, another at 31, three at 32 weeks, two at 33, two at 34—and one at 39 weeks.