Pictured: Baroness Nuala O’Loan
Two significant Private Members’ Bills are due to come before the UK House of Lords after being drawn in last week’s ballot.
Lord Moylan’s Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill was selected in fourteenth place and is expected to have its First Reading on Tuesday 9 June. Baroness O’Loan’s Infant (Born Alive) Protection Bill was drawn in seventeenth place and is scheduled for First Reading on Thursday 11 June.
While the precise wording of Lord Moylan’s Bill has yet to be made public, the subject matter is a pressing one. A Government review released in November 2023 indicated that abortion complications may be substantially undercounted in the official annual abortion statistics, which are based on reports submitted by abortion providers. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities examined Hospital Episode Statistics for England from 2017 to 2021 and found that hospital-based data showed markedly higher complication rates than provider-reported figures, with the discrepancy becoming even greater when incomplete abortions were included.
Right to Life UK has said that Baroness O’Loan’s Bill is intended to make clear the legal protections that apply to babies born alive after an abortion. The proposal follows recent changes to the law that have prompted serious concern about the prospect of late-term abortions taking place outside clinical settings, with obvious dangers for women and for viable unborn babies.
The fact that both Bills are being brought forward is a welcome development. In the face of increasingly extreme changes to abortion law, they provide an important chance to improve transparency, strengthen accountability and reaffirm protections for the most vulnerable.