Does Simon Harris properly understand the abortion law he is championing? The evidence mounts that he does not. For example, at the hearings of the Health Committee yesterday he rejected an amendment to his law that would explicitly ban abortion on grounds such as sex or disability. As reported in the Examiner, he believes the law will never permit an abortion on these grounds. But they will happen anyway, as they happen in other countries.

In countries such as Britain, for example, a woman must normally offer a ‘health’ reason to have an abortion. Officially, she cannot have an abortion because her baby is the ‘wrong’ sex. However, the practice is so common, that even members of the very pro-choice Labour party are concerned about it. Why does Simon Harris believe such a thing could not happen here?

Likewise, why does he believe abortions on grounds of disability won’t happen? To begin with, it has now been admitted that a woman can find out in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy whether or not the baby she is carrying has a disability. There is nothing whatsoever to stop her then having it aborted because in the first 12 weeks she can have an abortion for any reason. What does Simon Harris intend doing about that? Nothing, is the answer.

In Germany, unlike Britain, disability is not an explicit ground for abortion, but babies with conditions like Down Syndrome are aborted wholesale anyway, on the basis of a threat to the mental health of the mother.

Does Simon Harris know this? Will he be ‘fact-checked’ about any of it?

In the campaign itself, he also showed he does not properly understand his own law. For example, he thinks that after 12 weeks it will permit abortion only where there is a ‘serious risk’ to the mother. Not true. There need merely be a ‘risk of serious harm’. There is no attempt made to quantify risk. Whenever you take a plane ride there is a ‘risk of serious harm’, but the risk is tiny so we get on the plane anyway. But a tiny risk, including to mental health, is enough to justify an abortion under the Harris law.

So, as in countries like Britain and Germany, Simon Harris is paving the way for women to abort babies for reasons such as sex or disability. He should not try to pretend otherwise.  And our media should not cover up for him either.