Senior Labour MP Stella Creasy has called to make abortion a human right after Nigel Farage said it is “utterly ludicrous” that Britain allows the practice up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, The London Economic can reveal.
The Reform leader has said the UK’s current laws on abortion are “irrational” as critics argue his stance lacks understanding since the majority of terminations occur within the initial ten weeks, with later cases usually involving exceptional circumstances.
Stella Creasy has today accused Nigel Farage of “importing Donald Trump’s politics about women” into Britain, saying he is vying to “attack communities and various groups” because it has been “successful” in America.
Instead, the MP for Walthamstow has urged her colleagues to take action by signing her amendment to the policing bill, which would replace outdated Victorian-era laws that still criminalise abortion with new legislation that would make the practice a human right.
“We have been warning you about this man and his links to American anti-abortion campaigners. Now the mask is slipping about what he would do – the only way to protect abortion access is to make it a human right,” she said.
The amendment would repeal outdated 1861 and 1929 laws criminalising abortion, protect existing rights under the 1967 Abortion Act, and require the government to establish new regulations based on international human rights standards to ensure safe, legal, and protected access to abortion.
It already has the support of 66 cross-party MPs and Creasy anticipates that Nigel Farage’s comments will prompt even more MPs to back it.
“In light of Mr Farage’s comments, MPs will realise the threat [against abortion access] is very real. People don’t realise that American approaches to anti-abortion activism are already active here in the UK,” she told The London Economic, adding: “It is the only way to stop him from eroding the right to choose in this country and every MP can co-sign it.
“I am trying to sound the alarm that things will only going to get worse.”
Recent data indicates that over 250,000 women a year have an abortion and nearly 90 per cent of Brits support the practice.
Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Nigel Farage said: “I am pro-choice, but I think it’s ludicrous, utterly ludicrous that we can allow abortion up to 24 weeks.
“And yet, if a child is born prematurely at 22 weeks, your local hospital will move heaven and earth and probably succeed in that child surviving and going on and living a normal life.
“So I believe there is an inconsistency in the law. I believe it is totally out of date.”
But, he added: “I think our current situation on this is irrational.”
Farage has previously worked with the US-based Alliance Defending Freedom, a prominent organisation within the US Christian right and part of a global network of evangelical groups behind the repeal of Roe v Wade in America.