Activists now pushing to liberalise Scotland’s abortion law after censoring pro-lifers

Abortion activists who campaigned to criminalise pro-life witness outside abortion centres are now aiming to further liberalise Scotland’s abortion law.

Writing in The Herald, co-founder of Back Off Scotland Lucy Grieve boasted that Scotland “won a historic victory” after Holyrood passed the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Bill into law last month.

Grieve said the activists’ “next priority” is campaigning to expand Scotland’s abortion services, and that they are “looking forward to working with the Scottish Government over the coming months to look at ways in which we can reform Scotland’s archaic abortion law”.

Record high

The latest data published by Public Health Scotland show that the number of abortions in Scotland has already reached an unprecedented level.

Of the 18,207 abortions last year, almost all were carried out before 24 weeks for ‘social reasons’.

The majority of abortions (98.1 per cent) were chemically induced, over half of which (57.6 per cent) involved a woman taking abortion pills at home after just a phone or video consultation with a doctor or nurse.

Since emergency coronavirus legislation was introduced in March 2020, women in Scotland have been allowed to have an unsupervised DIY abortion within the first twelve weeks of pregnancy.

Censorship zones

Under the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Bill, people risk an unlimited fine for handing out pro-life literature within 200m of a centre, speaking to anyone about abortion, or holding a silent ‘prayer vigil’.

In March, pro-lifers warned the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee that the Bill threatened religious freedom and freedom of thought.

Director of March for Life UK Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, who was arrested for silently praying outside an abortion clinic in Birmingham while it was closed, advised Holyrood to “promote tolerance as opposed to censorship”.

Miss Vaughan Spruce was subsequently vindicated when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) failed to provide any evidence and dropped the charges.