A UK-based pro-life advocacy group is calling on the Scottish government to protect women, children, and the vulnerable in its upcoming session, outlining five key areas it believes Parliament should address when it returns from its recess.

Key Takeaways:

• The pro-life Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has detailed five issues it hopes lawmakers will consider when they return from their summer recess.

• These items include criminalizing abortion coercion, ending telehealth abortion, increasing palliative care, expanding the Scottish Child Payment to low-income pregnant women, and rejecting efforts to expand abortion.

• Last year, abortions in Scotland were at an all-time high.

The Details:

In a press release, SPUC detailed that in the upcoming session, it hopes Parliament will consider legislation to criminalize abortion coercion and end telehealth abortion. It also hopes lawmakers will increase palliative care funding and expand the Scottish Child Payment to low-income pregnant women from the 24th week of pregnancy.

Additionally, it is calling on lawmakers to reject legislative efforts to expand abortion, as MSP Gillian Mackay announced last fall that she hopes to decriminalize abortion completely, effectively allowing it up to birth.

“We urge Holyrood to reject expansions of the abortion law, invest heavily in compassionate palliative care, and implement these safeguards to defend human dignity," SPUC Executive Director Michael Robinson, said, adding:

"We are very hopeful that an overwhelming consensus can be reached across the Scottish Parliament in regard to making it a specific standalone criminal offence in Scotland to coerce a woman into having an abortion. Reproductive coercion occurs predominantly behind closed doors within abusive relationships, meaning the true scale is highly underreported.

Last year over 11,000 abortions were carried out at home using pills by post without any medical supervision, this leaves the door wide open to abusive partners coercing women into having an abortion they do not want.”

The Big Picture:

Earlier this year, Scotland officials released data showing that the country's abortion rate is at an all-time high, with 18,783 preborn children killed in 2025. 

Those figures came after the nation passed a law considered "the most extreme buffer zone law in the world," which prohibits all pro-life activity within 200 meters of a hospital or abortion business — even signs and displays located on private property.

At the same time, Mackay — the MSP behind the "buffer zone bill" — is seeking to decriminalize abortion, which she has called "a very normal part of healthcare."

Lawmakers return from their summer recess on August 31.