Nigel Farage’s plans to restrict access to abortion would have “catastrophic consequences for women”, campaigners have warned.
The Reform UK leader this week said it is “ludicrous we allow abortion up to 24 weeks” and that the law is “totally out of date”.
MPs and charities have hit back, saying there is “no clinical justification” for reducing the time limit and warned against the “imposition of cruel restrictions” on women seeking abortions.
Stella Creasy, a Labour MP campaigning for a human right to safe and legal abortion, said Mr Farage’s comments on abortion were “all part of the Trumpian playbook” – a reference to his close ties to the US president.
Speaking to The Independent after Mr Farage’s speech on Tuesday, Ms Creasy said: “It is not something he has thought deeply about, but somebody has sat him down and said ‘they are killing babies at birth’.
“There is a shed load of cash coming into anti-abortion activism, so everyone who thinks this could never happen in the UK needs to understand they are not coming in saying they are going to stop all abortions, they are saying ‘babies could live at…’ or ‘shouldn’t women see a doctor before they have one’, and it all sounds very reasonable.
“But in reality, it is a way of restricting access.”
The senior backbencher has tabled an amendment to Labour’s Crime and Policing Bill, which would guarantee women the right to safe and legal abortions. She says the change is essential to protect abortion access “from whoever is in power” after the next general election, amid a rise in anti-abortion organising.
Attacking Mr Farage, Ms Creasy said: “All those who want to use women’s bodies as the battleground for the culture wars or think that isn’t happening present a risk to women’s rights because they either bargain them away for votes or fail to act when we can [do something] to protect them.
“The Trumpian playbook is now very much a part of British politics, and one of the losers in that is always equality. What Farage is really doing is trying to get people to talk about why would a woman have an abortion, as if it’s anybody’s business. Because that is about shaming women.”
Tonia Antoniazzi, a Labour MP campaigning for a separate amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill which would decriminalise abortion, said “no woman should have Nigel Farage dictating their reproductive rights”.
Her amendment would ensure vulnerable women in England and Wales are no longer subject to years-long investigations, criminal charges, and custodial sentences for ending their pregnancies.
She told The Independent: “There is absolutely no clinical, ethical or informed basis for reducing the well-established abortion time limit. Nearly 99 per cent of abortions happen prior to 20 weeks, with the vast majority of those happening prior to 10 weeks.
“It is the most vulnerable women and girls that tend to be those more likely to need later abortion care, that is, women with complex foetal anomaly diagnoses, women who have experienced domestic abuse or trafficking and exploitation, and girls under the age of 18.
“Farage would do well to remember that the vast majority of the public support a woman’s right to choose, and one in three women will have an abortion in her lifetime.
“Currently, women are being arrested, from hospital bed to police cell, under outdated and inconsistent abortion law.”
Speaking at a press conference on the issue on Tuesday, Mr Farage said: “I am pro-choice, but I think it’s ludicrous, utterly ludicrous that we can allow abortion up to 24 weeks.
“And yet, if a child is born prematurely at 22 weeks, your local hospital will move heaven and earth and probably succeed in that child surviving and going on and living a normal life. So I believe there is an inconsistency in the law. I believe it is totally out of date.”
He has previously called for parliament to debate implementing stricter time limits on abortion.
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), said MPs were entitled to their views on abortion, but “it is wrong to suggest that there is any medical evidence that supports a reduction in the abortion time limit”.
BPAS spokesperson Katherine O’Brien said: “Just last year, leading fetal medicine experts wrote to members of parliament to warn that there is no clinical justification for reducing the time limit based on national outcomes data, and that any such move would have catastrophic consequences for women.”
It is supporting Ms Antoniazzi’s amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, which it says would “reform our archaic legislation” in a “compassionate and considered” way.
Reform UK was asked to comment.
