UK Prohibits Silent Prayer But Is Poised To Permit Abortion Till Birth

The same country that has repeatedly weaponized its anti-free speech laws to prosecute Christians for praying silently near abortion facilities went to great lengths this week to permit abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.

The House of Commons overwhelmingly voted on Tuesday to pass an amendment that would legalize abortion until birth across England and Wales. According to Right To Life UK, members of Parliament “hijacked” a Crime and Policing Bill “to rush through a seismic and unpopular change to abortion law after just two hours’ debate.”

Until now, the U.K. technically allowed elective abortions up to 24 weeks gestation, as long as two doctors agree continuing the pregnancy will harm the woman or her existing children’s mental or physical health — a vague and sweeping provision that the hundreds of thousands of U.K. abortions each year prove is easily met. The Abortion Act 1967 also permitted the abortion of unborn babies who, while still in the womb, are deemed at high risk for “physical or mental abnormalities” or to be “seriously handicapped” if they are born.

Under the latest expansion, which stil needs to pass both the Commons and the Lords before it becomes a law, however, women who induce abortion no matter the trimester would be shielded from criminal consequences.

Proponents of the expansionary amendment, including its proposer Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, pitched it as a way to eliminate the threat of prosecution against pregnant women who abort their babies, especially using back-alley, mail-order methods such as mifepristone.

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, however, noted that the amendment means now abortion “could be carried out for any reason, including the sex of the baby” through all nine months of pregnancy.

“There would also be no way to bring an abusive partner who causes the death of an unborn baby to justice,” SPUC explained.

Several conservative MPs, including Rebecca Smith and Julia Lopez, also warned that the amendment could easily be weaponized to permanently expand abortion permissions and embolden abusers.

The abortion amendment isn’t simply an unpopular legal scourge, it’s a moral one.

Under U.K. law, pro-lifers who commit a thoughtcrime by praying for the protection of unborn babies (even if that supplication is in their head) can be arrested, falsely imprisoned, prosecuted, and made to pay fines. The actual murder of countless more innocent lives, however, is rubber-stamped and even shielded from legal accountability by hundreds of MPs.

Corporate media frame Parliament’s latest abortion amendment as “historic” and “common-sense reform.” Yet even contemplating permitting the murder of unborn humans through all nine months of pregnancy while cracking down on the sincere prayers of Christians is not the mark of monumental progress, it’s one of severe decline.