Abortion Up to Birth: A Moral Collapse and a Test the Church Failed to Meet

Welcome to a post Christian England & Wales.

Something deeply serious has just happened in the House of Lords, and most people will barely have noticed.

In a late sitting, peers voted to retain Clause 208 of the Crime and Policing Bill. In effect, this removes criminal liability for a woman ending her own pregnancy at any stage, including right up to birth.

Pause there for a moment. This is not a minor legislative tweak, it represents one of the most significant changes to abortion law in this country since 1967.

And yet it passed with very little public attention and more troubling still, without anything like the level of Christian witness one might have expected.

Formally, the 24 week limit remains. In practice, however, the law has shifted. If there is no longer criminal liability, the boundary loses its force. Safeguards weaken. Enforcement becomes uncertain. The possibility of late term abortions increases, as does the risk that vulnerable women are left more isolated, or even pressured.

Even some who broadly support abortion rights have acknowledged how far reaching this is. That alone should tell us something.