Press Release: No Rollbacks, Abortion Rights Chair Slams Farage’s Call to Cut Time Limits

Responding to Nigel Farage, Reform MP’s call for a Parliamentary debate on cutting the time limit for abortion (in a press conference on 28/11/24), Kerry Abel, Abortion Rights Chair says:

‘24 weeks is a wedge issue used periodically to kick the dust up on abortion. It sounds reasonable to salami slice a few weeks off, but that’s not their goal. Later abortions are often for very difficult situations and also very rare.

‘Farage is linking up with the anti-abortion group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Their rhetoric is straight out of the anti-choice US playbook.

‘They use wedge issues like salami slicing the time limit,compulsory counselling or unnecessary scans at first before moving on to restrictions on abortion clinics and ultimately abortion bans.

‘Any restrictions on abortion would have a detrimental effect on womens health. We have seen women die in Georgia and Texas where abortion was severely restricted, starting with reducing the time limit. What we need to do is treat abortion as healthcare and look at modernising our practices, not rolling back abortion rights for cheap political gain.

‘Anti choice rhetoric is fundamentally about controlling women. This is why it has been co-opted by right-wing groups, this collaboration is not surprising. So we unite with the broad and diverse pro-choice majority to say bans off our bodies and no rollbacks here.’

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