Disgraced former Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has continued in his support for assisted suicide by giving a speech in its favour earlier this week in Parliament to MPs, to much public criticism. After a large number of MPs spoke in opposition to assisted suicide during a debate prompted by an e-petition on the matter, the former Health Secretary said that the suicide rate among those who were terminally ill was “double the suicide rate in the rest of the population”. He then went on to argue that the state should facilitate the suicide of a proportion of the population by making assisted s ..read more

The UK is facing the biggest Parliamentary battle in a generation as MPs are set to vote on a number of proposed changes to abortion legislation on 15 May. Earlier today, the Leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt MP, announced that Report Stage of the Criminal Justice Bill will take place on Wednesday 15 May. A number of abortion-related amendments to the Bill have been tabled. MPs will likely be given the opportunity to vote on two pro-life changes to the law: one amendment tabled by Caroline Ansell MP to lower the abortion time limit from 24 weeks to 22 weeks; and another tabled by ..read more

The Leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, has just announced that Report Stage of the Criminal Justice Bill is going to be on Wednesday 15 May. This means that we have under two weeks until the biggest battle on abortion in a generation. On Wednesday 15 May, MPs will be given the opportunity to vote on two positive changes to the law – one amendment tabled by Caroline Ansell MP to lower the abortion time limit from 24 weeks to 22 weeks – and another tabled by Liam Fox MP that would bring the abortion time limit for babies with Down’s syndrome in line with the time limit for babies t ..read more

Despite little public support, the Scottish Parliament has voted in favour of abortion buffer zone legislation at Stage 1 that would make it illegal to offer assistance to women seeking an abortion within 200m of any facility that performs abortions, and could even fine people for displaying pro-life signs in their own homes. Yesterday, MSPs in Holyrood voted in favour of Gillian Mackay MSP’s Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Bill at Stage 1, despite the fact that a Scottish Parliament consultation on the Bill showed that 77% of respondents were opposed to introducing buffer zo ..read more

A large number of MPs spoke in opposition to assisted suicide after an e-petition requesting a debate on the matter reached more than 100,000 signatures. Having responded to the petition first through a written statement in which the Government stated assisted suicide was a matter for Parliament to decide, MPs were subsequently required to have a debate on the matter.  MPs opposed to a future change in the law on assisted suicide emphasised the manner in which the eligibility criteria for assisted suicide in other jurisdictions has rapidly expanded, the risks this legislation imposes on ..read more

PRESS COMMENT – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Large number of MPs speak out against assisted suicide 29 April 2024 – This afternoon a large number of MPs spoke out against introducing assisted suicide during a Westminster Hall Debate on assisted suicide.  Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said: “A large number of MPs have today spoken out against introducing assisted suicide or euthanasia. Many of them raised serious concerns that legalising assisted suicide would pressurise the elderly, sick and vulnerable into ending their lives for fear of being a burden”. “The debate o ..read more

PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 56 years of abortion: 10,372,100 lives lost since 1967 Today marks the 56th anniversary of the Abortion Act coming into effect in 1968 – six months after it received Royal Assent.   Since then, a staggering 10,372,100* unborn babies have lost their lives to abortion across England, Wales, and Scotland — in 2021, (the last full year for which abortion statistics are available) more than one baby was lost to abortion every two and a half minutes; 26 lives were ended every hour. The number of abortions in England and Wales has reached a record hig ..read more

A premature baby boy from Fife has come home for the first time after spending 81 days in hospital. Stephanie Auchterlonie was first made aware that there might be a problem with her unborn baby at her 20 week scan. Medics identified a right aortic arch, a potential symptom of a genetic disorder called DiGeorge Syndrome.  Following this, doctors discovered at Stephanie’s first growth scan that baby Charlie was not growing properly due to a problem with her placenta. Shortly afterwards, Stephanie was transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Wishaw due to concerns about ba ..read more

The UK Government has announced it will be using £12 million of taxpayers’ money for a programme that will be implemented by an organisation that aims to “expand access” to abortion in Tanzania over the next two years, despite the fact abortion is illegal in Tanzania and that there is little support for such a move among the public or MPs. Earlier this month, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said it would be providing the money for a two-year extension of a family planning and sexual and reproductive health programme in the country. The programme, known as the Scaling Up Fam ..read more

Scotland’s proposed assisted suicide bill could allow assisted suicide for people with anorexia from as young as 16 years olds, an ethics expert has argued. Professor David Albert Jones, Director of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, has argued that the broad definition of terminal illness present in the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill could allow state-assisted suicide for people suffering from anorexia. “It is called the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, so that proclaims itself as being restricted to people who are terminally ill, but it defines ..read more