Devolution of abortion laws in Scotland prompts Labour warning

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/14/devolution-abortion-laws-scotland-labour

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Abortion laws are to be devolved to the Scottish government in a move that Labour has said could end up eroding the right of women to make their own decisions.

The Scottish National party welcomed the devolution and said it had no plans to change the current law that allows abortions until 24 weeks into pregnancy.

But Labour and women’s rights campaigners raised concerns that devolving this power could undermine the consensus on time limits for abortions.

David Mundell, the Scottish secretary, announced the decision and said he understood it was a matter that “many people feel very strongly about”.

“The subject was debated very passionately in the house during the passage of the original Scotland bill in 1998 and again during committee stage of the Scotland bill in July,” he said.

“The government has reflected very carefully on the points that have been made and I can today inform the committee that we will bring forward an amendment to the Scotland bill so that abortion law can be devolved to the Scottish parliament.

“Holyrood already has responsibility for dealing with end-of-life issues. It has responsibility for the NHS and for criminal justice in Scotland. I do not see a convincing constitutional reason for why abortion law should not be devolved, and that is what has led me to this decision.”

Last year the Smith commission on devolution for Scotland said further serious consideration should be given to handing over responsibility for abortion laws, but it was not in its final report.

Jenny Marra, the equalities spokeswoman for Scottish Labour, criticised the government for taking its decision “behind closed doors without any consultation with women’s groups across Scotland”.

She said: “The Smith commission promised a process to consider this, but that seems to have only meant a process that involved ministers of the UK and Scottish governments, and not women across Scotland.

“Scottish Labour firmly believes that the safest way to protect the current legal framework around abortion is for it to remain at UK level where there is a strong consensus around the current time limits. Leading human rights and women’s groups have said that devolving abortion law could undermine the right of women to make their own decisions.”

The move welcomed by Care for Scotland, a Christian charity, which said there should now be a debate among MSPs about whether Scotland has the right laws.

Stuart Weir, its national director, said it made “plain constitutional sense … for this new power to be given to Holyrood so the parliament here has power over start-of-life issues”.

He said: “The transfer of such a major new power clearly merits a full parliamentary debate and MSPs should take advantage of this opportunity as soon as possible. In recent years the Scottish parliament has debated assisted suicide and other complicated topics and proved itself equal to the task, so it makes obvious sense to debate abortion laws in Scotland following this transfer.”

This year 17 people from organisations including Scottish Women’s Aid, Amnesty International and the Human Rights Consortium Scotland signed a statement to MPs urging them not to meddle with the current legislation.

It said: “We are already in the situation in the UK where different legal frameworks on abortion have resulted in a discriminatory impact against women and girls in Northern Ireland, for which the UK has been repeatedly criticised internationally.“Our concern is that this strategy of hasty devolution is being used in order to argue for regressive measures and, in turn, a differential and discriminatory impact on women and girls in Scotland.”

Abortion laws are already devolved in Northern Ireland, where the practice is banned unless there is a danger to the mother’s life.