The U.K. All-Party
Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Population, Development and Reproductive Health
called on the U.K. government for increased funding of and access to abortion
in developing countries and in the U.K. in a new ‘report’. The ‘report’–WHO DECIDES? We
trust women- Abortion in the developing world and the U.K.— was created
from ‘expert testimony’ given by abortion industry and abortion advocacy giants
including International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Marie Stopes
International (MSI), Ipas, Center for Reproductive Rights, International
Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion, Doctors for a Woman’s Choice on
Abortion (DWCA), SheDecides, and Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.
The report is critical of
President Trump’s Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy and calls
for the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID) “to increase
investment in the full range of integrated SRHR services, including safe
abortion care” and “funding for family planning and the wider sexual and
reproductive health and rights agenda to 10% of official development assistance
and 10% of national development budgets.”
A senior policy advisor for
Ipas stated in her testimony
before the group, “It is no longer politically or morally acceptable for
governments or international bodies to use arguments of culture or religion to
avoid creating a supportive policy and legal framework for safe abortion that
would eliminate a major cause of maternal death and injury.”
The hearing report by the
parliamentary group—not a legislative committee— makes 10 recommendations for U.K.
action in developing countries and 12 recommendations for change in the U.K.
Internationally, it seeks increased support by DFID to change abortion laws
globally including broadening laws to “permit community and primary care health
workers, pharmacists, nurses and midwives to provide abortion” and expand use
of abortion-inducing drugs around the world.
The U.K. is urged to use its “voice to reinforce the importance and
centrality of abortion to women’s human rights and equality. Work should go
toward protecting abortion as a necessary health service, which is part of a
continuum of services. This will make it more difficult to marginalise safe
abortion care from the rest of family planning and SRH.” Conflict situations
and humanitarian settings are mentioned as particularly ‘needing’ access to
abortion.
Globally, the group seeks to
ensure that “adolescent girls and young women have access to youth-friendly and
nonjudgmental sexual and reproductive health services, including abortion care”
and access to comprehensive sexuality education “through in-school and
out-of-school programmes for adolescents that promote comprehensive sexuality education
including information on contraception and abortion”.
In the UK, the group’s wish
list includes decriminalizing abortion completely, permitting self-induced
abortion via medication at home, and allowing “primary care workers such as
nurses and midwives to manage both surgical and medical abortion in the first
trimester.”
It urges the building of
coalitions in Northern Ireland to “decriminalise abortion in NI – using the
momentum of the possible up and coming changes in the Republic of Ireland.”
The report credits pro-life
activity as creating an “obstacle” to abortion along with religion, abortion
‘stigma’, lack of access, and lack of information and trained personnel.
Promotion of access to
abortion-inducing drugs for so-called “medical abortion (MA)” in developing
countries and in the UK dominates the report, especially in the section
entitled Future of Abortion Self-Uses: The Wave of the Future.
In regards to the UN’s
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) it states that they “do not mention abortion
explicitly, as it is only part of the package of sexual and reproductive health
(SRH) services in countries where it is not legally restricted”. Disappointment
is expressed that “abortion services can still be separated or omitted from the
rest of SRH services by some governments and donors”. The MPs’ opinion is
expressed that “in order to be able to fulfil the 2030 SDGs, governments and
civil society must act to reform laws that criminalise abortion or stop women
from acting on their reproductive rights.”
The report declares, “The
International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) remains the gold
standard on setting and defining SRH policy. The ICPD Programme of Action
agrees that where abortion is legal, it should be safely accessible at the
primary level.”
Values and beliefs in the
sanctity of life held by health care providers are rejected as the report
claims: “Religious beliefs have no place in evidence-based healthcare.”
Conscientious objection (CO)
is disparaged: “CO has been used worldwide by healthcare providers as an excuse
to shirk their duties to care for their patients. Rather than coming from a
deep moral position, it is often noted to be an excuse to avoid a necessary
task. The imposition of a doctor’s religious beliefs on a vulnerable patient,
is a way to harm women and CO nearly always involves services needed by women
(contraception and abortion).”
The group expresses concern
about the influence of religion and faith-based institutions, “There is more
fundamentalism in all religions currently, this is not only Catholics, as many
fundamentalists oppose abortion. Recall that many hospitals — including
training hospitals — are run by religious institutions in developing countries.
They see that their providers receive no information on family planning or
abortion.”
The report appears to be a
tool to pressure the U.K. government to contribute to the ‘She Decides’
abortion fund set-up to counter U.S. pro-life foreign policy. The pro-life
actions of U.S. lawmakers are criticized as the group urges support for the
‘She Decides’. It declares, “It is important that other donors take proactive
measures to see that US anti-choice politicians do not dictate the care that is
available to women and girls world-wide. One such action is the ‘She Decides’
initiative, begun by a group of European donors including the Netherlands,
Belgium, Sweden and Denmark. The importance of continued U.K. leadership in
international global abortion cannot be under-emphasised.”
It is reported
that the U.K. has so far failed to contribute to the pro-abortion fund.
When asked why not,
pro-abortion Labour MP Gareth Thomas said he suspected “the desire to not
offend the United States” was behind the decision and he called on pro-abortion
activists to write to their MPs in order to “put pressure” on the new secretary
of state for development, Penny Mordaunt, to take up the cause.