Glenda Jackson votes against bill to ban abortion on gender grounds

Hampstead and Kilburn’s Glenda Jackson was the only MP to oppose the introduction of a private member’s bill seeking to change abortion rules this week.

Fiona Bruce, Conservative MP for Congleton, told the House of Commons on Tuesday that the law needs to be clarified to explicitly ban “sex-selective” abortions – pregnancies terminated because of gender.

She claimed this is happening across the country amid “widespread confusion” in the law.

Labour’s Ms Jackson was the only MP to vote against her attempts to bring the Abortion (Sex-Selection) Bill under the Ten Minute Rule on Tuesday. The bill was allowed by 181 votes to one.

Speaking to the Ham&High, Ms Jackson said she took a stand because sex selection is already illegal and “in my opinion, this bill is more about undermining the existing abortion laws”.

She added that the examples cited by Ms Bruce were more about domestic violence than abortion law.

A Department of Health spokesman said: “We are clear that abortion on the grounds of gender alone is illegal and have repeated this in guidance issued in May.”