Whose Choice Anyway

Throughout all its stages my own Bill had a pro-life majority. Opinion in the House has moved a long way since 1967 when only 29 MPs voted against the Third Reading of David Steel's Bill. His was the seventh attempt to enact abortion legislation. The Government of the day gave it an additional 25 hours of time to complete its stages. The present Government, despite a Commons motion signed by 120 backbench MPs and supported by many ministers and parliamentary private secretaries, said it would not even provide compensatory time in lieu of that which was lost on May 6th.

If no controversial Private Member's initiative is to be allowed to complete its stages it will set the 1967 Abortion Act in concrete. This places it in a unique constitutional position. It becomes a great untouchable.

The Government is faced with two choices. It can wait until a new session, when pro-life MPs will return with another Bill and will again force the House and the country to consider an upper time-limit for abortions set some 59 years ago in the Infant Life Preservation Act. Alternatively, the Leader of the House could present Parliament with a motion enabling the House itself to decide whether the compensatory time needed to complete the votes and the debate on Third Reading should be provided.

To date, despite receiving thousands of letters the Government has refused to find a single moment of parliamentary time to enable the House of Commons to reach a conclusion. In Parliament I contrasted the provision of time for a debate on the restoration of the death penalty (the other 1960s 'conscience' issue) with the failure to conclude the debate on a Bill designed to save human life. It was ironic indeed that Mr Roy Hattersley, the deputy leader of the Opposition, said in the capital punishment debate: 'It is wrong in itself, for it undermines the principles of the sanctity of human life on which all our laws are based.' Yet Mr Hattersley was reported in theIndependent newspaper just ten days earlier as personally intervening with Mr Speaker, urging him not to call the pro-life amendment.

The Prime Minister has been at it too. In her speech to the Church of Scotland she talked of the preciousness of life. She is said to be troubled that Thatcherism is so closely identified with consumerism and the selfish society and therefore wants to seek the higher ground. On four occasions I asked that the Prime Minister meet with me or co-sponsors of the Bill to discuss its contents and progress. Her pointblank refusal reveals much about her attitude and style. Pressing engagements kept her away from the House when the Bill was debated. Yet her time-table permitted her to be present to vote for the return of the death penalty. Throughout the passage of the Bill her personal antagonism has proved to be an immovable object and in the last analysis prevented more time being given.

For the future, pro-life supporters must organise even more effectively and especially in strategic, marginal seats. They must commit candidates during