Tories promote abortion at UN General Assembly against public opinion

As the world looks to America and The Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe V Wade which will potentially save millions of lives, a member of the UK government has gone rogue.

On Monday 25 April, Chris Carter, Head of Human Development at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, addressed the United Nations General Assembly at the 55th session of the Commission on Population and Development on behalf of the UK Mission to the UN. During his speech, he argued that abortion was an essential aspect of “sustained and inclusive economic growth” for women and girls. Carter said: “Member States must act now to ensure women, adolescents and girls around the world can access quality and comprehensive sexual and reproductive services, including safe abortion…” He also blamed “anti-gender movements” alongside the pandemic and other legal, economic and social barriers for limiting access to abortion. Carter linked the promotion of human rights to the promotion of abortion, referring to abortion when he said: “We all know that sustained and inclusive economic growth can only be realised when all women, adolescents and girls have their full human rights respected, protected and fulfilled, including comprehensive sexual and reproductive rights”.

Apparently, Mr Carter believes women can not achieve their financial independence if they become a mother. This backwards and misogynistic view does not reflect the view of the British people where women do not have to choose between becoming a mom and a career. It’s like Mr Carter has forgotten that the more people that are of working age, the greater the revenue generated via taxation; the more minds trying to solve important issues like the climate crisis, the greater the ability to innovate and provide real solutions.

The UK representative also urged Member States of the UN to “prioritise” the use of “innovative delivery models like telemedicine” to make abortion more easily available.

Telemedicine abortion, or ‘DIY’ home abortion, refers to occasions when a woman seeking an abortion does not have to have an in-person consultation with a medical professional before she has an abortion. They take place either over the phone or online, and then the woman seeking the abortion is either sent abortion pills through the post or is able to collect them. ‘DIY’ abortion was made legal in the UK in March 2020 on a temporary basis as part of the Government’s pandemic response. Between April 2020 and September 2021, more than 10,000 women had to receive hospital treatment following the use of medical abortion pills in England. Parliament has recently voted to make this scheme permanent, despite the Government’s insistence that it “was always intended to be a temporary measure” as part of other emergency legislation.

Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson, said: “It is disappointing to see the UK mission to the UN promoting a deeply repulsive ideology that pits women against their own children. It implies that women’s own biology, and specifically their ability to become pregnant and give birth to children, is a reason that they might be held back which can only be mitigated by abortion. This is a disgusting message that treats pregnancy as a disease and healthy pregnant women as if they are ill”. “No matter how many times he might repeat vacuous slogans about abortion being ‘key to unlocking women’s agency and potential’, Mr Carter should be reminded that there simply is no internationally recognised right to abortion”.

How on earth did this happen? This was certainly NOT in the Conservative Party manifesto. We can’t believe Liz Truss ordered it. It would seem to be the foreign office going maverick. If Boris has lost control of his own government, how can the British people hold these unelected charlatans, in the pocket of the abortion lobby, to account?