Current status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 22 October 2024
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recommendations of the report by Engender, Outdated, harmful and never in the public interest - The urgent need to modernise Scotland's abortion law and prevent prosecutions.
The Scottish Government believes that all women in Scotland should have access to abortion services, available free from stigma.
In the 2023 Programme for Government, the Scottish Government committed to undertake a review of the law on abortion. An expert group chaired by Professor Anna Glasier, the Scottish Government’s Women’s Health Champion, has been set up to help take forward this review. The review aims to identify potential proposals for reform, within specified term limits, before the end of this parliament. The Scottish Government will consider the recommendations made within the report carefully as part of this review. As such, the Scottish Government plans to wait for the outcomes of the review before commenting in more detail on the recommendations set out in Engender’s report.
Engender represent members of the advisory group of women’s rights organisations on this expert group, and will be able to feed their views into the review.
Details of the expert group, including minutes of their meetings are published on the Scottish Government website here: Abortion Law Review Expert Group - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
Once the expert group has completed its work, the Scottish Government will consider any recommendations or options proposed. Any proposals for changes to abortion law would be subject to a public consultation.