Prescription Only Medicines (Human Use) Amendment (No. 3) Order 2000

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 7:30 pm on 29 January 2001.

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Photo of Lord Carlile of Berriew Lord Carlile of Berriew Liberal Democrat 7:30, 29 January 2001

My Lords, I wish that like some noble Lords who have spoken in favour of the Prayer I was confident in the belief that I had a special insight into the conscience of the nation. I do not claim that credential for speaking in this debate. However, I claim two other credentials. The first is the special misfortune during the past 30 years of having appeared all too frequently in cases involving the deaths of babies who were virtually condemned to death when they were conceived in haste. The second is the much happier credential of being the parent of three adult women.

Some parents, unlike me and many of my friends, may have been extremely lucky. Their daughters may have passed seamlessly from the age of reason to the age of responsibility. But I do not believe that that is the general experience of many of us. We must protect our daughters and the girls of this country by the best means available, combining good moral sense and good medical science.

There is a moral issue which concerns me greatly. I start from the viewpoint that in this country there are far too many abortions of viable foetuses well embarked upon gestation. My observation and understanding is that abortion is physically and emotionally a potentially disturbing experience for almost all who undergo the process and that for many it is a completely ruinous experience which affects and damages for them for the rest of their lives.

Wherever it is realistically appropriate to avoid abortion, abortion should be avoided. I do not accept for one moment the proposition put by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that the use of the morning-after pill prescribed by pharmacists will increase the number of abortions. That seems a completely perverse misuse of logic.

Another moral issue seems to me to be held in the answer to the following question--