Chief Executive Andrea Williams writes on our culture’s inconsistency when it comes to unborn children
Can you imagine living in a world where the loss of one life is deeply mourned whilst the loss of another identical life is celebrated?
Where one law entitles parents to paid bereavement leave for the tragic and unexpected loss of their unborn child, whilst another law protects their legal right to intentionally take the life of that same child?
For the voiceless and the vulnerable, this is the dangerous reality in the UK – a place of two-tier justice, where the very value of life is dependent on whether a child is wanted or not.
Only a few weeks ago, our MPs voted to decriminalise abortion up to birth. And now proposed amendments to the Employment Rights Bill will give parents bereavement leave if they experience a miscarriage at any stage of the pregnancy, rather than only after 24 weeks as it is currently.
The change to bereavement leave is positive in that it affirms the value of life from conception. But the incongruity between this law and the abortion decriminalisation amendments is perplexing.
Miscarriage and abortion both result in a heart-breaking loss of life.
Yet we are told to mourn with the parents who suffer a miscarriage and celebrate with and defend the ‘autonomy’ of those who end their child’s life, at any stage and for any reason, by abortion.
What has shifted in our culture that allows these entirely contradictory laws to be supported almost as a matter of course?
Recognising the unborn child’s humanity
Currently, women have no right to bereavement leave after a miscarriage if it was before 24 weeks of pregnancy. It’s a taboo subject with too many women feeling unsupported and unseen at work while working through the trauma of the death of their unborn child.
In part I believe this is due to the pro-abortion narrative in the UK.
Since the passing of the Abortion Act 1967, our laws have told us that the death of an unborn child is not a tragedy if it’s the mother’s choice.
If, as abortion advocates claim, an unborn child is not a human and does not possess the right to life, then abortion cannot be a tragedy because it was only the removal of an unwanted ‘clump of cells’ rather than the murder of a baby.
Logically it also follows then that miscarriage is also simply a natural process where the body decides to remove this same clump of cells.
The pro-abortion perspective on the nature of an unborn child invalidates the grief of women facing a miscarriage.
For too long, women have been silenced after a pregnancy loss – silenced by a culture that doesn’t want “to talk about dead babies” and silenced by laws that suggest she only lost a ‘potential life’ not her own much-loved child.
But now, this law change is a positive step towards affirming the value of life and the right of women to grieve the loss of their unborn child.
In addition, last year, the right to a baby loss certificate to formally recognise the tragic loss of their unborn child was extended to include miscarriages before 24 weeks.
Both these laws rightly recognise the humanity of an unborn baby.
Miscarriage at any stage of pregnancy is a tragedy, and it is only right that women are given the right to grieve for their baby.
The right to grieve or the right to kill?
How are MPs so blind to the contradictions between abortion and bereavement leave?’
The same Parliament that is advocating for the right of a woman to have bereavement leave if she loses her child at any stage of her pregnancy also voted to give her the legal right to kill that same child at any stage up until birth.
Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, said, “No one who is going through the heartbreak of pregnancy loss should have to go back to work before they are ready.”
However, she also voted to permanently allow ‘DIY’ abortions, voted in support of abortion ‘buffer zones’, and previously voted to decriminalise abortion up to birth.
How does this make sense?
An unborn baby’s right to life needs to be rooted in its humanity – it must be innate. Otherwise, we end up with a culture like the one we have in the UK now, where the value of life is based on whether that life is wanted or not.
Our laws essentially say that if the mother wanted a baby, they deserve the time and space to grieve their loss after a miscarriage.
But if the mother didn’t want that baby, she deserves the legal right to kill it – up until birth – free from any consequences, guilt or social stigma.
The only logical explanation for this illogical reasoning is that our Parliamentarians view life in the womb almost as property – to be prized or discarded without consequences simply based on the feelings of the parents.
This is not unlike the rhetoric behind the worst abuses of slavery – where an individual’s value or ‘humanity’ is entirely dependent on what value their ‘owner’ places on them.
Laws like these place the emphasis not on the value of the vulnerable lives themselves but on the feelings and emotions of those who hold power over those lives.
This is the kind of culture our MPs are welcoming in through recent legislation.
While this bereavement law is an example of life-affirming legislation, the recent vote to decriminalise abortion is the opposite.
They cannot – and should not – peacefully co-exist.
They are humans too
This law change, although much needed, makes no sense in a society that celebrates the killing of its unborn.
The pro-abortion narrative cannot justify giving baby-loss certificates to parents who experienced a miscarriage before 24 weeks, ensuring they are entitled to bereavement leave, and then fighting tooth and nail for their right to kill that same child up to birth.
Like the reformers of old, now is the time we must stand up and say, ‘they are humans too’.
If our unborn children’s lives are worth grieving, they are also worth protecting in our laws.
After campaigning for this law change, Myleene Klass highlighted how crucial it is for our laws to recognise the grief of losing a child: “To lose a child, it’s harrowing, its traumatic and the entire family experiences it.”
And for women who have an abortion, that grief and trauma is often no different – only they also must deal with the guilt of knowing they chose this.
Women are told that abortion is simply a healthcare choice or a medical procedure: they are being lied to and are unprepared and unsupported for the immense grief that many of them will face after terminating the life of their child.
They deserve better than this: they deserve the truth and access to life-affirming options.
Myleene Klass later also said that, while this law is a good start, it is “just the beginning”.
I agree – the next step must be creating laws that reaffirm the humanity of an unborn child.
We must challenge Parliament to see the senselessness in simultaneously decriminalising abortion up to birth – essentially saying unborn lives don’t matter – and creating the legal right to bereavement leave for a miscarriage before 24 weeks.
Good law always protects life, and so must our MPs.
Changing the narrative
Our nation has abandoned its Christian foundations, and with that it has abandoned the very value of life.
However, this law is a glimpse of what can occur when we create legislation that reiterates the value of unborn lives.
I pray that this law has an unexpected yet profound cultural impact that validates post-abortive grief and eventually reinforces the value of unborn life and the tragedy of abortion.
May this law start conversations about when life begins, when it is worth grieving, and why our laws don’t give equal protection to all human life.
If we are to protect a parent’s right to grieve, we must also protect their child’s right to live.
And to protect these children’s right to live, we must unite to abolish the injustice of abortion.
