Abortion Situation In The UK

[Stranger Mouse]

Bearing in mind this https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... 698c41a8ff

How likely is it that we could have similar things happening in the UK to the states? I don’t mean a duplication - I just mean shocking and disadvantageous legislation brought about by similar forces. Perhaps dropping the current limit from 24 weeks to 16 weeks or reducing the availability of clinics to the extent where people miss deadlines etc

I keep being told on Twitter by right leaning historians (and a plethora of sockpuppets and bots that have made a sudden return) that it could never happen here because it wouldn’t be popular but it’s not popular in America. And a lot of Boris Johnson’s government’s polices aren’t popular.

If a Trumpesque dictator gets installed in America in 2024 how will that affect things? If the Mango Mussolini cut off international aid to countries based on abortion legislation presumably he could start wrapping it into qualifying lists for trade deals (especially if they decide free elections are passé)

I keep getting told I’m the boy crying wolf when I feel more like Cassandra

[temptar]

Abortion is still on the books as illegal in the UK. Roll back the legislation that allows for life of mother and two doctors signing off and you are screwed. Offences Against the Person, 1861, I think.

Point of info, that provision was repealed in Ireland when the relevant constitutional amendment was written into law.

So first thing you need to do is get that repealed on your side too.

[Little waster]

I caught a section of BBC News 24 just after the vote where a spokesperson from a collection of University anti-choice societies was given a platform to express her views, apparently unchallenged and unbalanced by any counter-argument, that actually overturning Roe Vs Wade was a just a minor sensible reform to benefit women and reciting a bunch of anti-abortion PRATTs.

They style themselves the Alliance of Pro-Life Students https://prolifestudents.org.uk/ and cover the standard christian fundamentalist talking points* around abortion, euthanasia and "wokeness" but are otherwise are coy over who funds them and go to great efforts not to make explicit any links to the various Christian fundy groups that operate in the same space as them and to present as a standard secular university society; which just happens to 100% share the same platform as Christian Voice with no obvious internal disagreements.

They proudly boast that the numbers of societies and members is growing yearly and are recording successes at pushing back at all the woke baby-murdering liberal professors who are indoctrinating students on campus.

So there's clearly an attempt to innoculate UK campuses with the same regressive culture war b.llsh.t as the US.

*Including the disingenuous "bait and switch" of "We should ban abortion because it wouldn't be necessary if we had far better childcare, could eradicate domestic abuse and provide decent financial support for mothers so they can stay at home like they are meant to rather than work. Forced to carry a unwanted baby to term, that would be true choice!". If the interviewer hadn't been phoning it in, the obvious follow up would be "so what exactly has your group to say, tackle domestic abuse, as your website makes no other mention of it other than as a dubious justification to restrict the rights of others". But they didn't.

[Woodchopper]

Bearing in mind this https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... 698c41a8ff

How likely is it that we could have similar things happening in the UK to the states? I don’t mean a duplication - I just mean shocking and disadvantageous legislation brought about by similar forces. Perhaps dropping the current limit from 24 weeks to 16 weeks or reducing the availability of clinics to the extent where people miss deadlines etc

It's unlikely to happen in the UK. Abortion isn't included in the issues that YouGov tracks as being important to the electorate. In the US at least, opposition to women having abortion rights is correlated with religious belief, and that is far lower in the UK than the (especially in terms of whether people pray daily and attend a weekly religious service).

I keep being told on Twitter by right leaning historians (and a plethora of sockpuppets and bots that have made a sudden return) that it could never happen here because it wouldn’t be popular but it’s not popular in America. And a lot of Boris Johnson’s government’s polices aren’t popular.

The difference is that in the UK only about six percent state that its too easy to get an abortion, and I assume from the earlier link, for those 6 per cent its not a particularly important issue.

In the US about 37 per cent believe that abortion should be illegal in all of most cases (while 61 per cent believe that it should be legal). More importantly, about 25 percent state that they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion, and a further 47 per cent see it as an important issue among many. Crucially "30% of those in the pro-life camp and 19% in the pro-choice camp say they are single-issue voters when it comes to abortion."

So while there is a broad consensus in favour of abortion rights in the UK, in the US there has been a significant minority of the electorate that is dedicated in opposition.

Finally, could a future political party get into government on a manifesto which didn't mention removing abortion rights from women, but then do just that when they were in power?

Firstly, the legislation could be blocked by the House of Lords for (if I remember correctly) up to about two years. Secondly, the European Court of Human Rights has rules that abortion rights are covered by Article 8 of the Treaty (which covers the right to privacy). If you are wondering about Poland, the court cases are ongoing. So hope that Britain doesn't leave the ECHR. Third, ultimately, the monarch could refuse to sign a bill that was opposed by the population. So there are some checks and balances, but don't count on them all working.

[Allo V Psycho]

Jeremy Hunt, who is certainly a potential PM, has long wanted (and presumably still wants) to reduce the 'abortion'* time limit to 12 weeks.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... d-alarming

12 weeks 'of pregnancy' is only 10 weeks after fertilisation. It's not uncommon for women not to realise they are pregnant on missing one period. In one study, 28% of women did not realise they were pregnant at 6 weeks 'of pregnancy' i.e. 6 weeks after the last menstrual cycle. Reasons for this can include variation in the menstrual cycle, and sometimes some breakthrough bleeding associated with implantation. This 28% would therefore only have 6 weeks to arrange their voluntary termination. If a pregnancy test was only carried out after the second missed period, they would only have 2 weeks. Some women do not realise they are pregnant at all until as late as 20 weeks, or even till birth, and this cannot be ascribed simply to pregnancy denial. Not realising that you were pregnant is a reasonably common factor in seeking a voluntary termination of a later pregnancy.

Good and recent review here, full text on Google Scholar.
Watson, K. and Angelotta, C., 2022. The frequency of pregnancy recognition across the gestational spectrum and its consequences in the United States. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf ... psrh.12192

Nadine Dorries has also argued for reduced time limits (to 20 weeks, but I imagine this is intended to be a slippery slope).

Hunt claims in the Guardian article that he wouldn't change the law if he were PM, so that's reassuring. I'm sure we can trust him as much as people trusted Brett Kavanaugh.

*I prefer the terminology "Voluntary termination of early pregnancy"

[Fishnut]

I'm more pessimistic about the future of abortion in the UK. Our politics seem to becoming an awful lot more American and I wouldn't be at all surprised if, after losing the EU as a talking point the tories will be searching for another emotive subject. There was a series of votes in 2008 to reduce the abortion limit from 24 weeks to anything from 22 weeks to 12 weeks and the majority of tory MPs voted to lower the limit, and a surprising number of Labour and LibDem MPs did too. It may not be a hot button issue now, but the EU wasn't really either, and it was only a few short years between the public getting riled up about it and us leaving. I can easily see a similar story play out with abortion.

On the religious belief angle - I don't know if anyone's been listening to Skeptics with a K recently, but they've been covering some anti-vax/covid conspiracy conferences and have been noting just how much of the rhetoric is coming from the US unchanged. Not just people talking about the FDA and how Trump really won, but the overt religiosity of the QAnon conspiracy movement. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we start seeing them start anti-abortion campaigns here now they can't rally behind opposing lockdowns or covid vaccines.

[noggins]

Seems to me to be driven by religion.

Show a me a surge in british church attendence - and specifically at evangelical churches and i will start to worry.

[Stranger Mouse]

Seems to me to be driven by religion.

Show a me a surge in british church attendence - and specifically at evangelical churches and i will start to worry.

They don’t need to have the public acting consistently with it if they can generate some culture war b.llsh.t. They don’t need an electoral reason to do it if it suits their own prejudices or it allows financial benefits from the right bigots

ETA I can see them edging 24 weeks to 20 citing improved medical care.

[noggins]

I think yous are not understanding how hugely different the USA is to the UK.

Also 2% of Uk abortions are after 20 weeks.

[Little waster]

Seems to me to be driven by religion.

Show a me a surge in british church attendence - and specifically at evangelical churches and i will start to worry.

I think the worry is that in the US, just like with Brexit, you had on the one side a highly-motivated minority willing to park all other considerations in order to deliver on their single-issue monomania and on the other side the vast majority of the electorate who despite being broadly opposed to the policy on the whole weren't going it to let it dominate theirs choices. Mania beats meh everytime.

So pro-choice Republicans voted Republican because of tax cuts but anti-abortion "Democrats" or Independents held their nose and voted Republican because of the ickle babies just like both Remain-leaning Tories and Brexit-loon Red Wallers found themselves voting for Johnson in 2019.

The concern then is a highly-motivated anti-abortion minority of say 10-20% of the UK electorate will pledge to deliver their caucus 100% to whichever party promises to ban abortion regardless of any other policy and enough of the pro-choice majority are then willing to go along with it because they support that party's stance on rural bus routes, tunnel-signage labelling or whatever of the other 99% non-abortion policies in their manifesto they rank as more salient.

[Stranger Mouse]

I think yous are not understanding how hugely different the USA is to the UK.

Also 2% of Uk abortions are after 20 weeks.

I understand perfectly how different the US is which is why I emphasised I didn’t expect us to duplicate their problems.

And the actual percentage of abortions currently over 20 weeks is irrelevant as my entire point was that I expect them to start fiddling with things at the edges. I know the UK doesn’t have the same religious environment as America which is why I and several other people on the thread have suggested different motivations and tactics.

If we were to discuss firearms I would agree that it is unlikely that we would ever have a situation in any way comparable to the states. But they’ve already started culture war b.llsh.t with trans stuff so I don’t think it’s far fetched that they’ll find a way to do it with reproductive health.

[Stranger Mouse]

Seems to me to be driven by religion.

Show a me a surge in british church attendence - and specifically at evangelical churches and i will start to worry.

I think the worry is that in the US, just like with Brexit, you had on the one side a highly-motivated minority willing to park all other considerations in order to deliver on their single-issue monomania and on the other side the vast majority of the electorate who despite being broadly opposed to the policy on the whole weren't going it to let it dominate theirs choices. Mania beats meh everytime.

So pro-choice Republicans voted Republican because of tax cuts but anti-abortion "Democrats" or Independents held their nose and voted Republican because of the ickle babies just like both Remain-leaning Tories and Brexit-loon Red Wallers found themselves voting for Johnson in 2019.

The concern then is a highly-motivated anti-abortion minority of say 10-20% of the UK electorate will pledge to deliver their caucus 100% to whichever party promises to ban abortion regardless of any other policy and enough of the pro-choice majority are then willing to go along with it because they support that party's stance on rural bus routes, tunnel-signage labelling or whatever of the other 99% non-abortion policies in their manifesto they rank as more salient.

This. With the caveat that I (dunno about others) ai am thinking of legislative, cultural and practical restrictions rather than necessarily an outright ban.

[Woodchopper]

Seems to me to be driven by religion.

Show a me a surge in british church attendence - and specifically at evangelical churches and i will start to worry.

I think the worry is that in the US, just like with Brexit, you had on the one side a highly-motivated minority willing to park all other considerations in order to deliver on their single-issue monomania and on the other side the vast majority of the electorate who despite being broadly opposed to the policy on the whole weren't going it to let it dominate theirs choices. Mania beats meh everytime.

So pro-choice Republicans voted Republican because of tax cuts but anti-abortion "Democrats" or Independents held their nose and voted Republican because of the ickle babies just like both Remain-leaning Tories and Brexit-loon Red Wallers found themselves voting for Johnson in 2019.

The concern then is a highly-motivated anti-abortion minority of say 10-20% of the UK electorate will pledge to deliver their caucus 100% to whichever party promises to ban abortion regardless of any other policy and enough of the pro-choice majority are then willing to go along with it because they support that party's stance on rural bus routes, tunnel-signage labelling or whatever of the other 99% non-abortion policies in their manifesto they rank as more salient.

To be equivalent to the US it would need to be more like 30-40 per cent who were highly motivated and prioritized that issue over all others. The only way I could imagine such a group in favour of banning all or most abortions would be a massive and completely unprecedented religious revival affecting about a third of the British population.

[Woodchopper]

With the caveat that I (dunno about others) ai am thinking of legislative, cultural and practical restrictions rather than necessarily an outright ban.

Fair enough, its more possible that it might become more difficult to get an abortion. For example, by removing it from coverage by the NHS so that women had to pay, or by reducing the term limits.

[Grumble]

I live just down the road from an abortion clinic. Although there are sometimes small groups of people (mostly men) praying on the other side of the road this isn’t often and I don’t think I’ve seen them holding up signs. This is suburban rather than city centre.

This only shows that there isn’t currently any groundswell of anti-abortion sentiment. This may change over the coming weeks and months in the wake of the US Supreme Court ruling so I’ll keep my eye out.

[Little waster]

Seems to me to be driven by religion.

Show a me a surge in british church attendence - and specifically at evangelical churches and i will start to worry.

I think the worry is that in the US, just like with Brexit, you had on the one side a highly-motivated minority willing to park all other considerations in order to deliver on their single-issue monomania and on the other side the vast majority of the electorate who despite being broadly opposed to the policy on the whole weren't going it to let it dominate theirs choices. Mania beats meh everytime.

So pro-choice Republicans voted Republican because of tax cuts but anti-abortion "Democrats" or Independents held their nose and voted Republican because of the ickle babies just like both Remain-leaning Tories and Brexit-loon Red Wallers found themselves voting for Johnson in 2019.

The concern then is a highly-motivated anti-abortion minority of say 10-20% of the UK electorate will pledge to deliver their caucus 100% to whichever party promises to ban abortion regardless of any other policy and enough of the pro-choice majority are then willing to go along with it because they support that party's stance on rural bus routes, tunnel-signage labelling or whatever of the other 99% non-abortion policies in their manifesto they rank as more salient.

To be equivalent to the US it would need to be more like 30-40 per cent who were highly motivated and prioritized that issue over all others.

Perhaps in the US but in the UK for such a single-issue electoral block to make a difference they would only have to reliably deliver around 10% of the electorate.

Johnson's stonking 80 seat majority resulted from the support of only 26% of the registered electorate.

If someone like Stephen Green (in his fondest dreams) could cast himself as the British Falwell and weld UK evangelicals, Catholics etc. into a single coherent, motivated political movement then they could present someone unscrupulous like Johnson with half of a winning electoral coalition.

All some future "Britain Trump" would then need to do is bolt on a couple of other fellow travelling caucuses (say the libertarians and the English, read white, nationalists) to assemble a coalition simultaneously capable of winning handsome majorities under FPTP (with/without gerrymandering and voter suppression) while being completely unrepresentative of the majority of UK voters and light-years from any recognisable sensible middle-ground.

That is essentially what has happened to the Republicans since Reagan.

Now the good news in the UK is that such an unholy alliance looks way-off but then again who in 2016 saw the recent incarnation of the PFKATheConservatives?

A bad election loss for Johnson would necessitate whichever Tory comes next to reinvent the Conservatives once again; we have been told repeatedly that is their great strength. Perhaps it will be some reheated form of Cameroonism or turbo-Thatcherism or Red Toryism or whatever but if they have been doing their homework any number of them will look across the pond to see what lessons they can learn from the Republicans, with the likes of Crosby and Murdoch perfectly willing to hold their coats for them.

I remember having just this conversation with one of Osborne's pointy-heads at Policy Exchange in about 2012. That they haven't managed/attempted to enact this plan just yet doesn't mean they couldn't dust it off again if the next election leaves a hollowed-out Tory party in existential crisis desperately searching for a "Hail Mary", in this case literally.

[Woodchopper]

I think the worry is that in the US, just like with Brexit, you had on the one side a highly-motivated minority willing to park all other considerations in order to deliver on their single-issue monomania and on the other side the vast majority of the electorate who despite being broadly opposed to the policy on the whole weren't going it to let it dominate theirs choices. Mania beats meh everytime.

So pro-choice Republicans voted Republican because of tax cuts but anti-abortion "Democrats" or Independents held their nose and voted Republican because of the ickle babies just like both Remain-leaning Tories and Brexit-loon Red Wallers found themselves voting for Johnson in 2019.

The concern then is a highly-motivated anti-abortion minority of say 10-20% of the UK electorate will pledge to deliver their caucus 100% to whichever party promises to ban abortion regardless of any other policy and enough of the pro-choice majority are then willing to go along with it because they support that party's stance on rural bus routes, tunnel-signage labelling or whatever of the other 99% non-abortion policies in their manifesto they rank as more salient.

To be equivalent to the US it would need to be more like 30-40 per cent who were highly motivated and prioritized that issue over all others.

Perhaps in the US but in the UK for such a single-issue electoral block to make a difference they would only have to reliably deliver around 10% of the electorate.

Johnson's stonking 80 seat majority resulted from the support of only 26% of the registered electorate.

If someone like Stephen Green (in his fondest dreams) could cast himself as the British Falwell and weld UK evangelicals, Catholics etc. into a single coherent, motivated political movement then they could present someone unscrupulous like Johnson with half of a winning electoral coalition.

All some future "Britain Trump" would then need to do is bolt on a couple of other fellow travelling caucuses (say the libertarians and the English, read white, nationalists) to assemble a coalition simultaneously capable of winning handsome majorities under FPTP (with/without gerrymandering and voter suppression) while being completely unrepresentative of the majority of UK voters and light-years from any recognisable sensible middle-ground.

That is essentially what has happened to the Republicans since Reagan.

Now the good news in the UK is that such an unholy alliance looks way-off but then again who in 2016 saw the recent incarnation of the PFKATheConservatives?

A bad election loss for Johnson would necessitate whichever Tory comes next to reinvent the Conservatives once again; we have been told repeatedly that is their great strength. Perhaps it will be some reheated form of Cameroonism or turbo-Thatcherism or Red Toryism or whatever but if they have been doing their homework any number of them will look across the pond to see what lessons they can learn from the Republicans, with the likes of Crosby and Murdoch perfectly willing to hold their coats for them.

I remember having just this conversation with one of Osborne's pointy-heads at Policy Exchange in about 2012. That they haven't managed/attempted to enact this plan just yet doesn't mean they couldn't dust it off again if the next election leaves a hollowed-out Tory party in existential crisis desperately searching for a "Hail Mary", in this case literally.

Even if a social revolution by 10% of the population is plausible, which I don't think it is, where's that 10% going to come from?

As far as I can tell, only about 5% of the UK population regularly attended church services in 2015 (which is the best proxy for commitment to religious beliefs) and given the long term trend the proportion is likely to be lower now. Catholics only make up a quarter of those regular attenders, and pentecostalists about 10% (source). Even among Catholics, circa 60% agree that "the law should allow an abortion if a woman decides on her own she does not wish to have a child”.

To get to your 10%, there would need to be a huge increase in religious observance and a sea change in opinion among Catholics. This would need to happen after a long term decline in religious observance in Britain.

[Little waster]

Even if a social revolution by 10% of the population is plausible, which I don't think it is, where's that 10% going to come from?

From your lips to God's ears ...

BUT we've already been on this journey with Brexit.

20 years ago, 15 years ago even 10 years ago(?) the relationship of the UK with the EU came similarly far down people's list of concerns; UKIP was regularly losing its deposit and it was rightly seen as the sole obsession of "swivel-eyed loons" even by those broadly supportive of Euroscepticism, regularly ranking alongside the moon landing conspiracy and the Electrosmog in terms of importance to the overall electorate. However the right leader, the right circumstances, a favourable press and an unscrupulous mainstream politician willing to ride that particular tiger and suddenly it is in the national conversation, we saw that with the re-emergence of US evangelicalism under Reagen. And one thing Brexit has taught us is that once everyone starts banging on about something people soon discover that not only do they actually have opinions but they have strong ones at that.

The status quo in the UK is something like 5% are very strongly anti-abortion, 5% are very strongly pro-choice and the other 90% ... haven't really thought about it all that much. From that baseline the fact we are even discussing this topic at all is a win for the anti-abortionists, even if they on the whole lose the argument. Roe vs Wade has meant for the first time, in a generation or more, the topic is seriously being discussed in the UK. The polarisation of the debate and subsequent increase in motivation it produces benefits the anti-abortionists even if the reaction it provokes helps pro-choicers. Better for them a society where 25% are fiercely anti-abortion even if they are opposed by 40% who are moderately pro-choice than their current situation of a small fringe of zealots screaming into the faces of an indifferent majority who consider the topic long done and dusted. Under FPTP that 25% is a strong base to build on even if it takes a generation, and like Brexit, they might only need to get lucky once.

[noggins]

Abortion is a self-contained moral issue .

Brexit is a socio-economic panacea.

[El Pollo Diablo]

I don't think there's any real risk to abortion rights in GB. Northern Ireland obviously still needs dragging kicking and screaming into caring about women but there isn't the same ability to confect outrage here on that issue as there is in the US. Look at TalkTV - it's failing. GB News is bumbling along with a small audience and minimal impact. Even the DM haven't really gone near it - and now that Dacre is going to get his peerage, hopefully he'll f.ck off into the sunset (preferably into the sun). There's very little interest in it here, and very little religiosity to back it up.

Obviously, there will be attempts to roll it back, but here evangelical Christianity is seen as silly rather than noble, and there's obviously a long history of burning Catholics at the stake criticising Catholicism.

[purplehaze]

I don't think there's any real risk to abortion rights in GB. Northern Ireland obviously still needs dragging kicking and screaming into caring about women but there isn't the same ability to confect outrage here on that issue as there is in the US. Look at TalkTV - it's failing. GB News is bumbling along with a small audience and minimal impact. Even the DM haven't really gone near it - and now that Dacre is going to get his peerage, hopefully he'll f.ck off into the sunset (preferably into the sun). There's very little interest in it here, and very little religiosity to back it up.

Obviously, there will be attempts to roll it back, but here evangelical Christianity is seen as silly rather than noble, and there's obviously a long history of burning Catholics at the stake criticising Catholicism.

Decriminalise abortion. New Zealand has.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-51955148

MP Jess Philips has tweeted about it.

"Tomorrow with sisters in the UK parliament we will seek ways to assist with tragedy awaiting US women. In UK abortion rights have progressed but in almost all of UK, a woman's right to choose as I have done each time I was pregnant is still written in criminal law. This must change."

[purplehaze]

Abortion was seen as a female health issue in the Middle Ages, up until the quickening. Even the Roman Catholic church thought this.

It's a no brainer.

[Chris Preston]

South Australia passed laws decriminalising abortion last year that will be enacted next month.*

One of the things to remember about the US is how strong evangelical Christianity is. 25% of the population, more in the south, report being adherents. Not only that, they also typically self identify as strongly religious. However, their influence is greater than that through their television programs.

Ever since Ronald Reagan courted the evangelical leaders, rolling back abortion rights has been a plank of the GOP, particularly at the state level. Even then there has been difficulty in implementing restrictions, as not all members of the GOP have been prepared to play along.

[Stranger Mouse]

Abortion was seen as a female health issue in the Middle Ages, up until the quickening. Even the Roman Catholic church thought this.

It's a no brainer.

The same quickening even Matthew Hale recognised as relevant but that was ignored by Samual Alito when quoting Hale.

[Woodchopper]

Even if a social revolution by 10% of the population is plausible, which I don't think it is, where's that 10% going to come from?

From your lips to God's ears ...

BUT we've already been on this journey with Brexit.

20 years ago, 15 years ago even 10 years ago(?) the relationship of the UK with the EU came similarly far down people's list of concerns; UKIP was regularly losing its deposit and it was rightly seen as the sole obsession of "swivel-eyed loons" even by those broadly supportive of Euroscepticism, regularly ranking alongside the moon landing conspiracy and the Electrosmog in terms of importance to the overall electorate. However the right leader, the right circumstances, a favourable press and an unscrupulous mainstream politician willing to ride that particular tiger and suddenly it is in the national conversation, we saw that with the re-emergence of US evangelicalism under Reagen. And one thing Brexit has taught us is that once everyone starts banging on about something people soon discover that not only do they actually have opinions but they have strong ones at that.

The figure for 2012 was a low point for public emphasizing the EU, and it had been much higher in the early 2000s. Public concern about immigration has also been high for decades ( source, pages 14 and 16). The UK relationship with the EU had also been a serious political issue for decades. John Major resigned in 1995 and stood for re-election in order to face down criticism about the EU in the Tory party. Brexit didn't just appear out of nowhere - support for leaving the EU was 65% in 1980, and after dipping to below 30 per cent in the 80s, was above 40% by the late 90s.(source)

The status quo in the UK is something like 5% are very strongly anti-abortion, 5% are very strongly pro-choice and the other 90% ... haven't really thought about it all that much.

I disagree. That might apply to men, but I expect that most women have thought about it. Its not a big issue for the electorate because almost everyone is OK with the current law. But it would probably become an important issue if anyone were to seriously try to remove access to abortion.

From that baseline the fact we are even discussing this topic at all is a win for the anti-abortionists, even if they on the whole lose the argument. Roe vs Wade has meant for the first time, in a generation or more, the topic is seriously being discussed in the UK. The polarisation of the debate and subsequent increase in motivation it produces benefits the anti-abortionists even if the reaction it provokes helps pro-choicers. Better for them a society where 25% are fiercely anti-abortion even if they are opposed by 40% who are moderately pro-choice than their current situation of a small fringe of zealots screaming into the faces of an indifferent majority who consider the topic long done and dusted. Under FPTP that 25% is a strong base to build on even if it takes a generation, and like Brexit, they might only need to get lucky once.

Maybe, but I still don't see where those 25% who are fiercely anti-abortion are going to come from.