Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Mogg dumps shares in abortion pill company
Firm No 2 linked to pro-life MP
TORY MP Jacob Rees-Mogg’s investment company has dumped stock it held in a second pharmaceutical firm selling abortion drugs.
The Sunday Mirror has learned the strident anti-abortionist had been profiting from shares held in drug firm FDC in India – where abortion is allowed.
It follows our revelations last week of similar investments in Indonesia, which the MP brushed off insisting: “The world is not always what you want it to be.”
The holding of 186,000 shares in India’s FDC, worth £467,800, was bought by Somerset Capital Management, of which Mr ReesMogg is a founder.
The shares, listed in the firm’s March interim report, have since been sold.
The 48-year-old devout Roman Catholic, tipped as a future Tory leader, has made clear his belief that abortion is “morally indefensible” in all circumstances – even following a rape.
He insists: “Life is sacrosanct and begins at the point of conception.”
Yet the father of six has been adamant that investing in the Indonesian firm Kalbe Farma – whose stomach ulcer pills are routinely used for abortions – presents no conflict with his beliefs.
He says that is because abortion is illegal in the country so the pills are not openly sold for that purpose.
But in India abortion has been legal for 46 years, with terminations allowed up to 20 weeks into pregnancy. More than six million a year are carried out on the subcontinent. The MP for North East Somerset said he did not make investment decisions and defended the holding in the Indian firm as “very small in proportion to total assets”.
The £467,800 worth of shares was just a tenth of the £4.8million that Somerset Capital still holds in Kalbe Farma.
But the MP added of the FDC holding: “I am glad to say it’s a stock that we no longer hold. I would not try to defend investing in companies that did things I believe are morally wrong.”
FDC, which exports to 50 countries, produces two drugs which, when used together, produce a termination of the same sort routinely given by the NHS.
The Mumbai-based firm makes misoprostol under the brand name Misolast and mifepristone branded as Undo. Indian drugs website Inpharmation lists both drugs as being for the termination of pregnancy.
Misoprostol can also be prescribed to prevent stomach ulcers, but will induce labour in pregnant women. In pregnancies of up to 12 weeks, it results in a termination in nine out of ten cases.