Abortion ruling ‘a terrible setback for democracy’, says Lord Robert Winston

The human fertility pioneer said reports of declining human potency are exaggerated

THE US Supreme Court decision to allow bans on abortions represents “a terrible setback for democracy”, according to infertility pioneer Lord Robert Winston.

He said women had the right to choose and went on to question a medical study that claimed the fertility of men is declining.

Asked about the US Supreme Court decision in an interview with GB News, he said: “Well, I think it’s a terrible setback for democracy.

“I think, unfortunately, women should have absolutely the right to choose. I don’t think parliamentarians or anybody else should have nearly as much power as they seem to.

“The Supreme Court, for example, has happened in the United States to make this ruling with six elderly men, I think is really quite unreasonable.

Commenting during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster, he added: “This cancellation of Roe v Wade in some states is another negative setback for the United States

“I’m afraid it won’t happen here, I’m quite certain of that, but we need to make sure that people understand there’s no such thing as life beginning at conception – sperm are alive, eggs are alive.

“Conception is only a moment of about 24 hours, and so really there is no one point in time when you can say a human is made.

“That is a general situation in all mammals, as in fact, fertilisation develops. Moreover, nature actually destroys most fertilised eggs anyway through natural processes.

“Not many naturally normal, fertilised eggs actually survive and become babies. That’s just one of the processes of the imperfect nature of human conception.”

Asked about reports about dealing rates of fertility, Lord Winston said: “I think we shouldn’t be too worried about stories about fertility, frankly, at all.

“One of the problems is that humans are so fertile that we actually overpopulate the world anyway, so I’m not convinced that sub-fertility, if it exists, would be a problem.

“But actually I do not think we will die out because males are not capable of protecting the females.”

Lord Winston was asked about a recent medical study that claimed that male fertility has been declining over the decades.

“We’re very familiar with the risk researchers at the Hebrew University, who I admire and respect the actual research they do, but actually the way we measure sperm counts now is very, very different from what it was 40 years ago,” he said.

“So much of the problem I think is new ways of method of measurement or more accurate measurement. 

“That’s one of the issues. I think, also when you look at different fertility clinics, which we did, for example, my own in London when I was working, was that actually when we re-checked these figures we never saw such a marked decline.

“It very much depends on how they’re observed. However, I do agree that maybe there’s some reduction in fertility, but it doesn’t seem to have prevented people getting pregnant.”