ONE of East Lancashire’s most senior clergymen is supporting plans for a new system of independent counselling for women seeking abortion.

The Right Rev John Goddard,is backing plans by the Department of Health to give pregnant women more ‘breathing space’ to enable them to make the right decision for themselves and their babies.

The Department of Health is developing plans to make it mandatory for abortion clinics to offer impartial counselling, run on separate premises by a group which does not itself carry out abortions.

Critics of abortion clinics claim that the counselling currently offered is biased because the clinics are run as businesses.

Bishop Goddard, who as Bishop of Burnley holds the second-highest office in the diocese of Blackburn, is a member of the Pro-life charity Life.

He said: “I totally back this move. Women who are going for an abortion need real time and space away from the abortion clinic to make up their minds.

“I have been a bishop for 40 years and I have seen a lot of people struggling with deep seated personal issues as a result of an abortion.

“I think we have developed from seeing abortion as an exception, to now often seeing abortion as the last step of contraception.

“I think it is important to protect the most vulnerable in society, and who is more vulnerable than the unborn child?”

Pro-life campaigners suggest the change could result in up to 60,000 fewer abortions each year in Britain. Last year, 202,400 were carried out.

The proposed change comes ahead of a Commons vote, due to take place next week, on amendments to a public health Bill put forward by Nadine Dorries, a backbench Conservative MP.

The vote would be the first on the laws around abortion since the Coalition took power.