| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
The medical imperative must always be to heal, to comfort and to preserve life. Standing in stark contrast to the counsel of despair is a well developed and venerable tradition in medicine that refuses to consider the intentional ending of a life as a treatment option. In years gone by the imperative to care and not to kill has led to the improvement of pain relief and new ways of making patients comfortable, rather than simply ending lives.
The amendment in my noble friend’s name gives us a chance to proclaim a very important and profound message about the way we respond to suffering, imperfection, illness and the disabilities of our fellow human beings. It will be a clear and powerful statement to disabled people everywhere that we welcome them as full members of our community and society. Most importantly, it will preserve the lives of some of the most vulnerable human beings among us.
The law as it stands is, indeed, discriminatory. In the context of the possibilities of foetal surgery on conditions as different as cleft palate and spina bifida—an issue that my noble friend and I raised with the Minister recently—Parliament certainly needs to look at those questions and review this and
12 Dec 2007 : Column 312
Those advances in foetal surgery, the work of Professor Sunny Anand, who has highlighted the pain experienced by the unborn, and that of Professor Stuart Campbell, which has opened a vivid window into the womb, have completely changed the terms of this debate. I know my noble friend believes that if no way is found rigorously to examine all aspects of how the law currently works, then she, and perhaps others, will be left with no choice on Report but to test the opinion of the House. I hope that both sides in both Houses will look for a way to address the concerns of my noble friend. After 40 years, as my noble friend Lady Finlay has said, it is surely time for a comprehensive review of all aspects of the abortion laws.
Following the letter which the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and I sent to the Times, I was very heartened to receive a number of letters. I will mention just one from Professor Peter Dunn, emeritus professor of perinatal medicine and child health, also signed by Professor Gordon Stirrat, emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynaecology and senior research fellow in ethics in medicine. These are two of the leading authorities on this subject, who have been involved in these issues for the past 40 years. They said:
“We write in support of this suggestion published in your letter to the Times on 22 November. Both of us have been involved in the medical debate on this subject since the 1970s ... We hope that these contributions will be of help to you and we wish you every success in your endeavours”.
They believe, as do many others, that it is time to look again at some of these questions.
The Liaison Committee will, on 8 January, consider a request from the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and myself, also supported by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, the noble Baroness, Lady Knight of Collingtree, the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Hampstead, the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. I know that it is supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and others. I was heartened to hear the remarks of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester in his earlier intervention. If it is modelled on the scrupulously fair and formidable committee which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, chaired, and which examined the equally contentious issue of assisted dying, perhaps it will provide an intelligent and thorough way of addressing questions like the one raised by my noble friend tonight.
I am glad my noble friend tabled this amendment. I hope she will feel able to withdraw it tonight, after we hear assurances from the Minister that the arguments raised are powerful, deserve to be addressed and that we will find some way, before Report stage, to look at all the issues raised on both sides of this argument in a thorough way, which does not pit us unnecessarily against one another—and certainly not in the context of this Bill.
12 Dec 2007 : Column 313
Baroness Barker: I, like other noble Lords, well recall the noble Lord, Lord Alton, calling on us at Second Reading not to turn this Bill into a debate on abortion. Some of us have not done so. I would simply like to ask the noble Lord to enable the House to be fully informed. He mentioned an opinion poll. Will he put before the Committee details of that poll with a full list of the questions and sample size and information about who commissioned and paid for the poll?
Lord Alton of Liverpool: I would be happy to answer that now. The poll was commissioned by the charity Life and carried out by professional polling organisation ComRes. I would also be happy to let the noble Baroness have a copy of the questions and the answers.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I may surprise the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester, but I agree with him on the points he made today and, by implication, one he made in a previous debate. First, I think that he is absolutely right to say that we should not be using this Bill, at this time, to open up a debate about abortion. The noble Baroness may think that she can limit the debate to the issue of disability or equity between foetuses—disabled or non-disabled—at 24 weeks and thereafter. However, I can assure her that there will be plenty of other voices wanting to adjust the abortion law one way or another and it is a Pandora's box. I would strongly urge her not to go forward without having first the fullest discussion and effort at consensus building in both Houses based on research and scientific scrutiny. There should be Select Committee pre-legislative scrutiny and all the other things that we should properly have on a complex and difficult matter.
The second point on which I agree with the right reverend Prelate, which might be to his discomfiture, relates to when some of us were trying to suggest that there was an inconsistency in his attitude to children being adopted by a gay couple or single gay person as opposed to the right of those same individuals to seek IVF treatment, surrogacy or some other such treatment. The right reverend Prelate said that a real distinction should be made between fighting for the best possible outcome for a child who already exists and needed to be placed where they could have the best chance of a happy and well adjusted life—and we all know that very often those children may be the ones who are hardest to place—as opposed to knowingly bringing a child into this world into a relationship that he thought was inappropriate. I hope that I am not doing his position an injustice.
I think that the same thing applies here. I am confident that I can speak for my noble friend Lady Gould and I am certainly speaking for myself in believing that I would be shoulder-to-shoulder with any disabled person in this Chamber in fighting for the rights of disabled people, as I have sought to do all my life. But I make a distinction between that and the question of the status of the foetus—I will not even say the unborn child. That can produce a conflict between the rights of that and the right of a woman to choose, when she may have the relevant
12 Dec 2007 : Column 314
Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Alton, I do not want to go into the detail of that argument tonight. Otherwise, I might be addressing the very issues that are not appropriate to this Bill. But on both of those grounds, I hope that the noble Baroness will not only withdraw her amendment tonight but will not come back in this way with amendments to address this topic. If we are to discuss this—and I am sure that we shall be doing so—our arguments should be based on the evidence that we do not have here tonight and we do not have as part of this Bill. It belongs appropriately in another form.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: I pay tribute to the noble Baronesses, Lady Masham, Lady Wilkins and Lady Campbell, for the courageous way in which they have raised this issue. They have made all of us think very deeply about the issues that they talked about. I do not want to detain the Committee for more than a moment or two. Many of us feel—and I share the view—that we do not yet have all the information that we need to debate the topic seriously and to get the answer right. Those of us who have taken the line, from the right reverend Prelate to the rest of us, including the noble Lord, Lord Alton, have an absolute responsibility not to treat the issue of referring this to a Select Committee as a way of simply shelving the issue and delaying the outcome.
Whatever side we may take on the issue that has been raised, we have a responsibility to the three noble Baronesses to ensure that the Select Committee reports in a reasonably rapid period of time and that the Government commit themselves to finding time for the matter to be discussed. We all know that without that commitment it is useless to talk about urgency and about a need for there to be a new discussion. If we ask the Government—I would add my voice to those asking them—to be willing to accept turning this over to a Select Committee, we should, in turn, take responsibility for that as a serious commitment, one that we will all commit ourselves to and one that we hope the Government will agree to find time to debate when the Select Committee has reported, so that the matter will not simply be put off to infinity, as it so often has been in the past.
Baroness Tonge: I agree with the noble Lords and the right reverend Prelate in particular who were expecting not to debate this issue in the Committee tonight. I thought that there was agreement from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others that we would not have a proper debate, because it was an inappropriate amendment to this Bill. In a way, it is an insult to the subject; it needs dealing with much more seriously on its own with other abortion issues. Whatever side of the arguments we are on, everyone has an opinion and wants to talk about it. Therefore, I thought that it was a little unfair of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who I always enjoy listening to, to make such a long speech when there was no one except the noble Baronesses, Lady Gould, Lady Hollis and myself from the other side of the argument—the women’s side.
12 Dec 2007 : Column 315
Lord Sewel: I speak with some reservation tonight. I have followed the debate today largely through my television set in my room. I ask the Committee in its deliberation on the Bill, which I accept is an important Bill, to have some regard to progress of business outside the Bill. There was scheduled for today a significant debate on European Union proposals in a particular policy area that has had to be rescheduled. I am afraid that there have been elements in the debate that I would describe as an indulgence. I am coming close to, but I want to avoid, the word “abuse”. I will not use it myself. There has been a repetition of argument and an unnecessary prolongation of the debate, which has meant that an issue for debate that was laid before the House for later tonight has been lost. Important as these issues are—I recognise their importance—it is incumbent on those who wish to participate in these debates, to recognise that there are other important issues that the House may wish to consider.
Lord Alton of Liverpool: I do not entirely understand that intervention. This is the fourth Committee day of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. It is a highly complex and important Bill, and my noble friend’s amendment is entirely in order. She raised the issue at Second Reading and participated in that debate. It would have not been accepted by the Clerks, if it were not in order. In Committee, we all have a right to contribute on amendments.
We are trying to find a way forward that does not mean that there is the sort of debate that the noble Baroness said that she would not wish to see on Report. In that sense, the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, and I are in agreement. As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said, we must find a way of dealing, in a constructive manner, with the powerful case made, which was far from repetitive. I thought that the three noble Baronesses who spoke did great justice to this. The noble Baroness, Lady Gould, put an alternative point of view, as she is entitled to do. Any Member of your Lordships' House is entitled to be present. Due notice had been given of the amendment; it appeared properly on the Marshalled List.
I have made my own position clear—that I would prefer these issues not to be raised in the context of the Bill, and would prefer to find another way to deal with them. However, I rigorously defend the right of my noble friend to table the amendment before your Lordships' House. That was how the disability clause came into law in the first place through the 1990 legislation and, unless a way is found to look at the matter again in the way described by others in Committee tonight, it will be inevitable that it will come back on Report—and no doubt prolong our proceedings on another occasion, too.
9 pm
Lord Sewel: I certainly accept what the noble Lord, Lord Alton, says—it is right and proper to aerate arguments at this stage in the progress of the Bill. I have no complaint with that, but the quid pro quo is a recognition that there is properly other business before your Lordships' House which ought to be given due consideration.
12 Dec 2007 : Column 316
Baroness Tonge: I sat down in courtesy to give way to an intervention, and I did not expect to have everything that I was going to say completely scuppered by two noble Lords.
Baroness Tonge: No, I shall not give way again if the noble Lord will excuse me.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alton, in that we had three wonderful speeches from the noble Baronesses, Lady Masham, Lady Wilkins and Lady Campbell, and a clear and cogent argument for the other side from the noble Baroness, Lady Gould. However, I would like to address a couple of matters that, as a doctor, I feel that I have to.
I was a junior doctor before the Abortion Act 1967, and remember delivering an anencephalic baby at term. That means that the child had no brain—it had a face and a few skull bones—and it lived for five minutes. The mother had known from an X-ray—that is all that was available in those days—that something was grossly wrong with her baby for weeks and weeks, and she had had to carry on with the pregnancy because there was no possibility of an abortion in those days. That is just as emotive and heart-breaking for that woman as any of the other things that we have heard tonight. When we talk about leaving the provision for serious handicap to be dealt with after 24 weeks if necessary, I think of that woman and child. That event was unforgettable, and it was not the only one. It was very severe, but others were almost as severe. You have to remember those cases, so you have to leave flexibility in the law for them to be dealt with.
At the other end of the scale, we heard about a case of cleft palate; how outrageous it was is much bandied about. On looking it all up, I noticed that the Crown Prosecution Service did not prosecute. We do not know the details of the case. Cleft palate can be associated with some pretty gross abnormalities as well. We do not know; that may have been the case for that child.
I think that we should leave the law as it is, but I agree that we should have a full and proper debate on all issues surrounding abortion. I would like to close by agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. In the end, it is a woman who has to be pregnant for nine months, go through childbirth and be primarily responsible for the child, whether it is disabled or not. We have to give her the right to choose.
The Lord Bishop of Winchester: I wonder whether I catch the sense of the Committee in thinking that, with all honour to the three noble Baronesses, we have done as much as we reasonably can this evening. The logical thing is therefore that no one else stands up—I realise that I am standing now. If no one else does, presumably the Minister will respond and it will be for the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, to determine how she responds to that. That seems the rational and proper thing for the Committee to do, given all the circumstances.
12 Dec 2007 : Column 317
Lord Darzi of Denham: I am grateful for this informative debate on this sensitive subject. The amendment tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Masham, Lady Wilkins and Lady Campbell, concerns abortion and, as we are all aware, that is a matter for Member’s individual consciences. We have made it clear that amendments on this matter will be subject to a free vote. However, the Government have a role in administering what Parliament has decided to enact and with that comes the role of advising Parliament so that the Committee is fully aware of the implications of legislative proposals.
The amendment would bring a fundamental change to the abortion legislation first passed in 1967 and amended in 1990, which covers England, Scotland and Wales. Many noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Steel—who I understand have written to the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, on the issue—have suggested that a House of Lords Select Committee should be established to undertake a comprehensive review of abortion. The Government share the view of the Committee expressed today that there is value in debating moral and ethical issues such as abortion and benefits in addressing complex issues in Parliament. Noble Lords will appreciate that, ultimately, whether a Select Committee is established to review the existing policy on abortion is a matter for Parliament.
On the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, about intrauterine surgery, it is absolutely correct that early scientific and technological innovation in this area shows promising early results and we should look at that more carefully in the future. I have set out the likely effects of this amendment, should it be accepted, and I hope that Members of the Committee will consider these points.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. It is not the fault of this amendment that we have sat so late. I apologise to all those who did not have any dinner, particularly those on the Front Bench. I do not feel at all guilty about tabling it. Many people outside this House are exceedingly worried about babies having to go full term. Perhaps I can tell the Committee what happens. After the lethal injection, babies can be squashed within the mother’s womb before they are got out, which is horrible and revolting. It cannot be any good for anyone.
I am interested in the dignity and safety of the unborn child. I thank those who have supported the amendment. I say to the right reverend Prelate that he
12 Dec 2007 : Column 318
I thank those who spoke in favour of a committee. I would go along with that, but this is such an urgent issue and a committee could delay matters, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said. That is my worry and I tabled the amendment so that it could be discussed and so that people will take more care. At six months a baby is very well developed and to have to go further is very worrying indeed.
I would like to thank my noble friend Lord Alton for his very well researched points on this difficult topic. There is one more thing I would like to say. I noticed during today’s debate and on Monday and in the previous week that we are getting out of the practice in your Lordships’ House of those who have put their names to an amendment not speaking after the mover. This is happening more and more and perhaps the usual channels could look at this.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Is the noble Baroness saying that everybody whose name is on an amendment should speak to it or should not?
Baroness Masham of Ilton: They usually speak after the mover. That has been the practice for many years but it has lapsed. It is something for the usual channels to look at. I thank the Minister for what he has said and hope that he can help in this matter. I know he feels strongly about saving life. He has demonstrated to us how well he can do it with my noble friend Lord Brennan. I will look and see what happens over Christmas and the new year until our next stages. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |