Another Day in the Death Cult

The UK establishment is becoming increasingly committed to what looks uncomfortably like a death cult. A society that once viewed the preservation of life as a duty now increasingly treats death as morally elevated.

This grisly drift is indicated by two bills. The first is the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which MPs vote on this Friday. The second is an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill passed today, which makes profound changes to our abortion laws. Both masquerade as modernising acts of compassion and choice. But both prioritise ending life over protecting it. Both have been rushed through with disturbing zeal. Both are cause for alarm.

By now, it is abundantly clear the assisted dying bill is neither safe nor workable. I’ve written about its problems before, but to recap, in the first place, a mandatory cooling-off period for people with a terminal diagnosis was rejected. The supposed High Court judge safeguard was abandoned. Proposals to protect people with Down’s syndrome were brushed aside. Even the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which usually maintains a neutral stance, has come out against the bill. Multiple disability organisations have warned it would put pressure on the vulnerable to end their lives.

It’s hard to avoid the impression that some MPs are ghoulishly determined to push this bill through at all costs, waving hashtags like #ChoiceAtTheEndOfLife. (Kim Leadbeater, we’re looking at you.) But what kind of choice is it when access to decent palliative care is rationed by postcode lottery? What sort of freedom is it when palliative care is expensive and under-resourced, while a lethal dose of execution drugs is fast and cheap?

As journalist Dan Hitchens highlighted in a thread on X, death is likely to be prioritised over palliative care as has been the case in other countries. Gordon Brown argued in The Guardian that the focus should be on providing the best possible end-of-life care.

And today MPs voted to decriminalise abortion for women in relation to their own pregnancies, removing the threat of prosecution even in late-term cases. This was done by amending the Criminal Justice Bill, and it represents the most significant shift in UK abortion law in decades.

To be clear, I am not anti-choice. I have supported friends through abortions. I can imagine circumstances in which I might make that decision myself. I believe that an outright ban causes harm. But I also believe in limits. I think the current law, messy and imperfect as it is, has at least tried to strike a balance. Which is why I think changing the law should be a matter of enormous care and deliberation. Instead it has been rushed through faster than the suicide bill.

Under the existing framework, abortion is permitted up to 24 weeks if continuing the pregnancy poses a risk to the woman’s physical or mental health or to her existing children. After 24 weeks, it’s allowed only if there is a substantial risk that the child would be born with serious physical or mental abnormalities. (Although it must be pointed out that ‘severe’ is not strictly defined and in 2001 a pregnancy was terminated at 28 weeks due to a due to the diagnosis of a cleft lip and palate.) The law requires the sign-off of two doctors. Women who self-administer abortion pills beyond 9 weeks and 6 days could, until now, faced prosecution.

The new amendment changes this last point. Women who end their pregnancies outside legal time limits or via illegal pills will no longer be criminally liable — even up to full term.

Why? Because six women have been charged in the last two years for ending their own pregnancies, including Carla Foster, who was over 30 weeks pregnant when she obtained pills by misleading an abortion provider over the phone.

Another, Nicola Packer was cleared by a jury of unlawfully administering herself with abortion pills at home during lockdown in 2020. She had taken prescribed abortion pills when she was around 26 weeks pregnant, beyond the legal limit of 9 weeks and 6 days. She had not realised she had been pregnant for more than 10 weeks.

These are rare and tragic cases. But is the answer to fully decriminalise abortion to term? Isn’t this a problem with abortion pills sent by post? Shouldn’t abortion require a face to face consultation? Even abortion care providers have raised concerns about how rushed this amendment was.

This amendment would mean that a pregnant woman can end the life of her baby in her womb, even if the baby is ‘viable’ and could survive if born prematurely, without going to prison. Tell me, is that so very different to infanticide?

We are told these two changes to the law are about compassion and choice but it feels as though death is sacralised, not life. Extremists are dragging us towards a future where death is the only guaranteed public service. It’s just another day in the death cult.