Brazil legislators reject abortion reform - Irish Times July 10th 2008
A committee in Brazil's lower house of Congress has rejected a bill that would have legalised abortion in the world's most populous Roman Catholic nation.
Some deputies had placards hanging from their necks, showing pictures of aborted fetuses. Another reportedly took a mock-up of a baby's coffin into the debate, in the Chamber of Deputies, to show his opposition to the proposed reforms.
The Justice and Constitution Committee in the Chamber of Deputies voted 57-4 against a bill that had been stuck in Congress for 17 years. The bill is now likely to be shelved.
"This bill won't prosper in the Chamber," said Deputy Eduardo Cunha, committee leader.
Several ruling party legislators pushed the bill after Health Minister Jose Temporao last year all but endorsed legalising abortion.
More than 200,000 women are hospitalised annually because of botched abortions, government statistics show. Based on those figures some experts estimate the number of abortions could be as high as around 1 million per year.
Church groups, which lobbied against the legislative proposal and witnessed the hearing, cheered and prayed in celebration after the vote.
Few legislators supported the bill.
"You can't treat this issue on the basis of religion or belief. It's a public health issue," said Deputy Jose Genoino, who voted in favor of the proposal.
Temporao angered church groups by proposing a referendum on the legalisation of abortion and backing increased use of contraceptives.
The government has begun distributing condoms in public high schools and in April launched its own factory to produce condoms made of rubber from Amazon trees.
Temporao has warned that the large number of women having illegal abortions was a serious public health issue because of often dangerous complications when they went awry.
Many Brazilians believe it is mostly poor teenagers who abort. But a study co-sponsored by the University of Brasilia showed that most abortions were practiced by Catholic mothers, aged 20-29, with jobs, who used contraceptive devices and had steady sexual partners.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Australia: Decriminalise Abortion Now!
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/755/39006
Green Left Online
Decriminalise abortion now!
Margarita Windisch, Melbourne
14 June 2008
Abortion is the second most commonly performed surgical procedure for women in Victoria and, according to the World Health Organisation, one of the safest in the world. However it is singled out to be the only medical procedure in the Victorian Crimes Act, making it a criminal offence.
Consecutive opinion polls have confirmed that the law is completely out of step with community attitudes, with 80% of Victorians supporting a woman’s right to choose an abortion. Women have access only under common law, through Justice Menhennitt’s 1969 ruling that permits abortion when it is necessary to protect the life or health of a woman.
The 2006 Victorian ALP state conference voted to decriminalise abortion, however efforts by individual MPs to put up a private members’ bill in support of a woman’s right to choose had been consistently thwarted by social conservatives in the ALP.
After mounting pressure from within ALP ranks and community groups, the state attorney-general commissioned a report in September, 2007, on abortion law reform, which was finally tabled in parliament on May 29. Parliament will vote this year on which of the three recommended models for decriminalisation in the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s report will be adopted.
The three options advocated vary considerably in scope and the main difference lies with who will be the final decision maker in individual cases and which circumstances make abortion legal.
Leslie Cannold, bio-ethicist and spokesperson for ProChoice Vic, told Green Left Weekly that even though Model A would take abortion out of the Crimes Act, it essentially enshrines the Menhennitt ruling into legislation, keeping the decision about whether a procedure was “necessary” in the hands of the medical profession and the law.
While in Model B a women’s consent provides lawful authority for an abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, after that point one or two doctors would have to assess whether the continuation of a pregnancy poses a risk of harm to the woman. According to the report, “risk of harm” would be defined in line with current law and legal decisions since the 1969 Menhennitt ruling.
As in Model A, a doctor who performed an abortion without being satisfied that the continuation of the pregnancy posed a risk of harm to the woman could be prosecuted.
Cannold argued that while Model B is an improvement to Model A, it is still totally inadequate: it treats the small percentage of Victorian women who require a termination after 24 weeks of gestation as incapable of being the ultimate decision makers.
The most progressive of the proposed options is Model C, which essentially makes the woman the decision maker throughout the entire pregnancy. An abortion would only be deemed unlawful if conducted by unqualified people and conducted without the woman’s consent.
Cannold agrees with Marilyn Beaumont, CEO of Women’s Health Victoria, who told GLW that abortions should not be put into in the Health Act but be subject to the same regulatory mechanisms that already exist for other medical and health service delivery.
“Abortion has to be understood for what it is. It is a safe and simple medical procedure, which is also what the World Health Organisation is saying. Therefore it should not be treated any differently to other medical procedures”, Cannold told GLW.
Victorian Socialist Alliance state convener Sue Bolton said that by defining abortion as a crime it has stigmatised the issue and subjected abortion providers and women to vicious harassment by vocal fundamentalist Christians, tragically resulting in the fatal shooting of a security guard at an abortion clinic in Melbourne some years ago.
Bolton also said that by making abortion illegal, the government has limited publicly funded abortion services, thereby adversely affecting women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and rural areas in particular.
Decriminalising abortion is an important step towards women achieving self-actualisation by giving them the right to fully control their fertility and their body.
However any legislative steps to bring abortion in line with other medical procedures has to come hand in hand with increased accessibility and affordability if we truly believe in women’s freedom. Even under Model C, the medical profession can impose clinical restrictions. Increased government funding will be absolutely critical to make sure all women will be able to access the service they need no matter where they live, how far advanced their pregnancy or what their socioeconomic background is.
“While it would be a victory to take abortion legislation off the Crimes Act, we have to judge the result not by what’s written on paper but by what actual difference it will make to the daily lives of women”, Bolton commented.
Even though the majority of Victorians are pro-choice, there is no guarantee that parliament will vote in favour of Model C, the most woman-friendly option. The Greens have already come out in favour of this model, but Labor and Coalition MPs will be able to exercise a conscience vote on the issue.
“We need a strong and vocal public campaign to pressure the ALP state government to vote for the best model for women, otherwise they might well capitulate to the influential minority anti abortion lobby, like they have done in the past”, Bolton concluded.
From: Comment & Analysis, Green Left Weekly issue #755 18 June 2008.
---
Green Left Online
Decriminalise abortion now!
Margarita Windisch, Melbourne
14 June 2008
Abortion is the second most commonly performed surgical procedure for women in Victoria and, according to the World Health Organisation, one of the safest in the world. However it is singled out to be the only medical procedure in the Victorian Crimes Act, making it a criminal offence.
Consecutive opinion polls have confirmed that the law is completely out of step with community attitudes, with 80% of Victorians supporting a woman’s right to choose an abortion. Women have access only under common law, through Justice Menhennitt’s 1969 ruling that permits abortion when it is necessary to protect the life or health of a woman.
The 2006 Victorian ALP state conference voted to decriminalise abortion, however efforts by individual MPs to put up a private members’ bill in support of a woman’s right to choose had been consistently thwarted by social conservatives in the ALP.
After mounting pressure from within ALP ranks and community groups, the state attorney-general commissioned a report in September, 2007, on abortion law reform, which was finally tabled in parliament on May 29. Parliament will vote this year on which of the three recommended models for decriminalisation in the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s report will be adopted.
The three options advocated vary considerably in scope and the main difference lies with who will be the final decision maker in individual cases and which circumstances make abortion legal.
Leslie Cannold, bio-ethicist and spokesperson for ProChoice Vic, told Green Left Weekly that even though Model A would take abortion out of the Crimes Act, it essentially enshrines the Menhennitt ruling into legislation, keeping the decision about whether a procedure was “necessary” in the hands of the medical profession and the law.
While in Model B a women’s consent provides lawful authority for an abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, after that point one or two doctors would have to assess whether the continuation of a pregnancy poses a risk of harm to the woman. According to the report, “risk of harm” would be defined in line with current law and legal decisions since the 1969 Menhennitt ruling.
As in Model A, a doctor who performed an abortion without being satisfied that the continuation of the pregnancy posed a risk of harm to the woman could be prosecuted.
Cannold argued that while Model B is an improvement to Model A, it is still totally inadequate: it treats the small percentage of Victorian women who require a termination after 24 weeks of gestation as incapable of being the ultimate decision makers.
The most progressive of the proposed options is Model C, which essentially makes the woman the decision maker throughout the entire pregnancy. An abortion would only be deemed unlawful if conducted by unqualified people and conducted without the woman’s consent.
Cannold agrees with Marilyn Beaumont, CEO of Women’s Health Victoria, who told GLW that abortions should not be put into in the Health Act but be subject to the same regulatory mechanisms that already exist for other medical and health service delivery.
“Abortion has to be understood for what it is. It is a safe and simple medical procedure, which is also what the World Health Organisation is saying. Therefore it should not be treated any differently to other medical procedures”, Cannold told GLW.
Victorian Socialist Alliance state convener Sue Bolton said that by defining abortion as a crime it has stigmatised the issue and subjected abortion providers and women to vicious harassment by vocal fundamentalist Christians, tragically resulting in the fatal shooting of a security guard at an abortion clinic in Melbourne some years ago.
Bolton also said that by making abortion illegal, the government has limited publicly funded abortion services, thereby adversely affecting women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and rural areas in particular.
Decriminalising abortion is an important step towards women achieving self-actualisation by giving them the right to fully control their fertility and their body.
However any legislative steps to bring abortion in line with other medical procedures has to come hand in hand with increased accessibility and affordability if we truly believe in women’s freedom. Even under Model C, the medical profession can impose clinical restrictions. Increased government funding will be absolutely critical to make sure all women will be able to access the service they need no matter where they live, how far advanced their pregnancy or what their socioeconomic background is.
“While it would be a victory to take abortion legislation off the Crimes Act, we have to judge the result not by what’s written on paper but by what actual difference it will make to the daily lives of women”, Bolton commented.
Even though the majority of Victorians are pro-choice, there is no guarantee that parliament will vote in favour of Model C, the most woman-friendly option. The Greens have already come out in favour of this model, but Labor and Coalition MPs will be able to exercise a conscience vote on the issue.
“We need a strong and vocal public campaign to pressure the ALP state government to vote for the best model for women, otherwise they might well capitulate to the influential minority anti abortion lobby, like they have done in the past”, Bolton concluded.
From: Comment & Analysis, Green Left Weekly issue #755 18 June 2008.
---
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Toronto Sun : We're a Pro-Choice Country
We're a 'pro-choice country'; Poll: 91% of Canadians support women's right to abort pregnancies but are split on who should foot the bill
Monday, 23 June, 2008
The Toronto Sun
An overwhelming majority of Canadians continue to support women's right to abort pregnancies, but a recent national survey found the country is split when asked who should foot the bill.
The online Angus-Reid poll -- conducted June 4 and 5 of 1,000 adult Canadians -- found 91% of respondents supported abortions under certain circumstances, and only 5% would outlaw it altogether.
Of those polled, 49% said abortions should be legal under any circumstances, and 42% agreed abortions should be allowed under only certain conditions.
RAPE, INCEST CASES
A total of 22% said they approved of abortions only in the case of rape, incest, and medical emergencies, and 7% said abortions should be allowed only to save the mother's life.
Ontario and British Columbia had the highest support for allowing all abortions at 50% each.
According to Carolyn Egan, a spokesman for the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics, the pro-choice support is not surprising.
"Canada is very solidly a pro-choice country. There is no doubt about that," she told the Sun yesterday. "I think there is a minority in this country who feel abortion is wrong ... but I think we're moving beyond (the debate)."
When it comes to funding abortions, though, there is not the same level of support.
The same poll found 44% of respondents thought the public purse should only pay for abortions that were medical emergencies.
Four percent think the health-care system should never fund abortions.
Egan said the numbers surprised her, but that they may not truly reflect people's thoughts on the issue.
She said many younger women, low-income women and women from rural areas could not afford abortions if they had to pay for them themselves, and so if the public system didn't pay for their procedures, it would amount to discrimination.
ILLEGAL ABORTION
Also, denying those women publicly funded abortions would force them to either go through a pregnancy they aren't prepared for, or look for illegal abortion sources, she said.
"People think about the use of their health-care dollars, of course, but once you get into the discussion with them and explain the circumstances, most people would be quite supportive of the health-care system paying for the procedure for women," Egan said.
"I think you then find that most people would be quite sympathetic."
Monday, 23 June, 2008
The Toronto Sun
An overwhelming majority of Canadians continue to support women's right to abort pregnancies, but a recent national survey found the country is split when asked who should foot the bill.
The online Angus-Reid poll -- conducted June 4 and 5 of 1,000 adult Canadians -- found 91% of respondents supported abortions under certain circumstances, and only 5% would outlaw it altogether.
Of those polled, 49% said abortions should be legal under any circumstances, and 42% agreed abortions should be allowed under only certain conditions.
RAPE, INCEST CASES
A total of 22% said they approved of abortions only in the case of rape, incest, and medical emergencies, and 7% said abortions should be allowed only to save the mother's life.
Ontario and British Columbia had the highest support for allowing all abortions at 50% each.
According to Carolyn Egan, a spokesman for the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics, the pro-choice support is not surprising.
"Canada is very solidly a pro-choice country. There is no doubt about that," she told the Sun yesterday. "I think there is a minority in this country who feel abortion is wrong ... but I think we're moving beyond (the debate)."
When it comes to funding abortions, though, there is not the same level of support.
The same poll found 44% of respondents thought the public purse should only pay for abortions that were medical emergencies.
Four percent think the health-care system should never fund abortions.
Egan said the numbers surprised her, but that they may not truly reflect people's thoughts on the issue.
She said many younger women, low-income women and women from rural areas could not afford abortions if they had to pay for them themselves, and so if the public system didn't pay for their procedures, it would amount to discrimination.
ILLEGAL ABORTION
Also, denying those women publicly funded abortions would force them to either go through a pregnancy they aren't prepared for, or look for illegal abortion sources, she said.
"People think about the use of their health-care dollars, of course, but once you get into the discussion with them and explain the circumstances, most people would be quite supportive of the health-care system paying for the procedure for women," Egan said.
"I think you then find that most people would be quite sympathetic."
From WorldPublicOpinion.org : Majority of People Reject Criminal Penalties for Abortion
Majority of People Reject Criminal Penalties for Abortion According to Opinion Poll
According to an opinion poll released this week, majorities in 17 out of 18 nations surveyed reject the use of criminal penalties such as fines or imprisonment, as a means to prevent abortion.
WorldPublicOpinion.org interviewed 18,465 respondents in 18 geographically and culturally diverse countries representing 59 percent of the world’s population. Respondents were from countries where abortion is legal including the United States and France, and also countries with highly restrictive abortion laws like Mexico, Poland, and South Korea. On average across all 18 countries, 52 percent of respondents favored leaving the matter of abortion to the individual.
“Clearly many governments around the world using criminal penalties to try to prevent abortions are out of step with their publics,” said Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org.
WorldPublicOpinion.org is a collaborative research project of research centers from around the world, managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland.
According to an opinion poll released this week, majorities in 17 out of 18 nations surveyed reject the use of criminal penalties such as fines or imprisonment, as a means to prevent abortion.
WorldPublicOpinion.org interviewed 18,465 respondents in 18 geographically and culturally diverse countries representing 59 percent of the world’s population. Respondents were from countries where abortion is legal including the United States and France, and also countries with highly restrictive abortion laws like Mexico, Poland, and South Korea. On average across all 18 countries, 52 percent of respondents favored leaving the matter of abortion to the individual.
“Clearly many governments around the world using criminal penalties to try to prevent abortions are out of step with their publics,” said Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org.
WorldPublicOpinion.org is a collaborative research project of research centers from around the world, managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
SPIKED-ONLINE.COM: Abortion in Britain- The Debate Aint Over Yet
From Spiked-Online.com Thursday 22 May 2008
Ann Furedi
Abortion in Britain: the debate ain’t over yet
Ann Furedi welcomes British MPs’ defence of the 24-week time limit, but says much more can be done to free up and streamline abortion services.
Following this week’s debate about abortion in the House of Commons, Ann Furedi of bpas – the leading provider of abortion services in the UK – says we now must debate how to make it easier for women to access abortion.
This week’s vote in the UK parliament to retain the 24-week upper gestational limit for most abortions was important for two reasons.
Firstly, because it retained the precedent that has existed since abortion was legalised in England and Wales in 1967 that the time limit is set by medical and scientific consensus on viability. Secondly, because MPs acknowledged why women need access to abortion services in the later weeks of the second trimester, and indicated that this would not change even if access to earlier abortion was improved.
There was much discussion on the floor of the House of Commons about ‘evidence’: evidence from august medical bodies about when severely premature infants can be kept alive, and evidence from abortion providers about the circumstances of their clients. There was little discussion about ‘principles’: whether abortion is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, whether it is a ‘social good’ or a ‘social evil’.
For those of us who have watched the debates evolve over the decades, it was interesting to see how the limits of the discussion have shifted. In 1990, the best of the pro-choice placards and posters demanded that abortion should be available ‘as early as possible, as late as necessary’, suggesting that women’s need for abortion should be met irrespective of fetal viability (a principle that was adopted for women whose pregnancies were affected by a serious risk of severe abnormality). At the other end of the spectrum, the anti-abortion lobby argued that abortion was murder and should not be tolerated by civilised society.
During Tuesday’s debate, there was no consideration about whether a time limit is necessary and no argument about the need to outlaw abortions entirely. How curious to hear the most vociferous opponents of abortion accepting that abortion should be available to 12 weeks, and arguing that a reduction to 12 weeks would still allow the majority of procedures to take place. Did we really see that veteran anti-choice war-horse, Ann Widdecombe MP, walk into a division lobby in support of abortion in the first trimester? Tactics, tactics; it was all about tactics; it was all about what could be won.
Abortion politics in parliament today is about pragmatism more than principle. The anti-choice movement accepts that it cannot win support for an outright ban on abortion. The pro-choice movement accepts that politicians will set restrictions. Everything is about where the boundaries of provision are set. The discussion as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill shuffles towards its Report stage and final vote will be focused on the ‘politics of the possible’. And there is much that should be possible.
The ‘progressive’ or ‘modernising’ amendments that have been discussed by the pro-choice movement are so moderate that they were recommended by a recent House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. The possible amendments that will receive serious consideration will not ‘liberalise’ the abortion law, in the sense of making it easier for women to have abortions in circumstances which would now be restricted. They are modest measures that would make the provision of services more straightforward and less bound by out-of-date bureaucracy.
The current requirement for two doctors to certify that a woman meets the legal grounds for abortion has been questioned even by many parliamentarians who wished for a lower gestational limit. The two-doctors rule is not a clinical assessment and not linked to obtaining consent, which happens later during a medical consultation. The requirement was seen as essential in the 1960s to underline the gravity of the abortion decision, and to provide reassurance to doctors who were concerned that abortion referrals might be challenged and who thus drew confidence from a colleague’s ‘second signature’.
But today, when abortion referral is so common and it is accepted by officials that the law can be interpreted to provide abortion when a pregnancy is unwanted – because it is accepted that an unwanted pregnancy is a threat to mental health – the certification requirements have become nothing more than a tick-box exercise. The doctors are not even required to see the woman – both can sign ‘unseen’ – making their assessment on the basis of recommendations made by a nurse or counsellor. Currently, it is difficult to sustain an argument for why two doctors need to certify rather than one. It is even difficult to argue that it should be a doctor that signs rather than a nurse or other trained professional. An amendment to get rid of the ‘two doctors’ requirement would eliminate some unnecessary bureaucracy that can sometimes delay treatment and which wastes clinicians’ valuable time.
Currently the law insists that only doctors registered with the General Medical Council can perform abortions. This requirement means that nurses can only assist and not take responsibility for carrying out procedures. This is frustrating for nurses denied the possibility of developing and practicing skills that are seen as a normal part of nursing care in other countries. Early aspiration abortion procedures are less complicated than many procedures routinely undertaken by nurses, and nurses already lead many early medical abortion services – doing everything except prescribe the drugs.
Even the Royal College of Nurses, not the most radical of institutions, is solidly behind a reform that would allow nurses to take responsibility for abortion care – a move that would make it possible to increase access to early abortion by increasing the number of appointments, and improve the quality of care.
Forty years ago, when the Abortion Act was passed, abortions were a more complicated medical procedure, usually requiring an overnight stay in hospital, and legislators were concerned to ensure that women received appropriate clinical care in properly equipped clinics. Memories of ‘backstreet’ abortions were recent, and the legislation was designed to ensure they were eliminated.
But today, an increasing number of pregnancies are terminated by medication: the abortion pill. This is a procedure that does not fit easily into a clinical environment, and it would be best if the medication used to bring on the woman’s ‘miscarriage’ were taken in the comfort and privacy of her own home, as happens in the US and many European countries. Yet the law, as it stands, means that women must receive the drugs at a licensed clinic and then travel home. In effect this undermines the quality of care that clinics can provide, as it means that women are at risk of starting to cramp and bleed while they are travelling. The current requirement for places using the abortion pill to be licensed by the secretary of state for health excludes facilities that could meet the technical requirements for early medical abortion provision, and consequently denies women more local, easily accessible services.
And then there is the issue of Northern Ireland, which was excluded from the provisions of the Abortion Act in 1967, meaning that a woman in Newcastle, County Down, is denied a procedure that is available to a woman in Newscastle-upon-Tyne, unless she meets the cost and emotional burden of travelling to a clinic in England.
The Report stage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill provides an opportunity for these modernisation measures to be considered in the context of the previous House of Commons vote that endorsed the current time limit. The House of Commons has clearly endorsed legal abortion up to 24 weeks gestation. When abortion is legal, it should be provided to the highest standards, by appropriately qualified staff, in an appropriately equipped environment. The law should surely ensure this and not frustrate it, as it does currently.
There is a longer and more complex debate to be had about the place of abortion in modern society. Right now, the HFE Bill provides an opportunity to deliver a quick fix on areas of the law that are clearly broken.
Ann Furedi is chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the leading provider of abortion services in the UK. bpas is holding a conference in June on the ethics, politics and practice of abortion. A small number of bursary places are available for people unable to obtain funding.
Ann Furedi
Abortion in Britain: the debate ain’t over yet
Ann Furedi welcomes British MPs’ defence of the 24-week time limit, but says much more can be done to free up and streamline abortion services.
Following this week’s debate about abortion in the House of Commons, Ann Furedi of bpas – the leading provider of abortion services in the UK – says we now must debate how to make it easier for women to access abortion.
This week’s vote in the UK parliament to retain the 24-week upper gestational limit for most abortions was important for two reasons.
Firstly, because it retained the precedent that has existed since abortion was legalised in England and Wales in 1967 that the time limit is set by medical and scientific consensus on viability. Secondly, because MPs acknowledged why women need access to abortion services in the later weeks of the second trimester, and indicated that this would not change even if access to earlier abortion was improved.
There was much discussion on the floor of the House of Commons about ‘evidence’: evidence from august medical bodies about when severely premature infants can be kept alive, and evidence from abortion providers about the circumstances of their clients. There was little discussion about ‘principles’: whether abortion is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, whether it is a ‘social good’ or a ‘social evil’.
For those of us who have watched the debates evolve over the decades, it was interesting to see how the limits of the discussion have shifted. In 1990, the best of the pro-choice placards and posters demanded that abortion should be available ‘as early as possible, as late as necessary’, suggesting that women’s need for abortion should be met irrespective of fetal viability (a principle that was adopted for women whose pregnancies were affected by a serious risk of severe abnormality). At the other end of the spectrum, the anti-abortion lobby argued that abortion was murder and should not be tolerated by civilised society.
During Tuesday’s debate, there was no consideration about whether a time limit is necessary and no argument about the need to outlaw abortions entirely. How curious to hear the most vociferous opponents of abortion accepting that abortion should be available to 12 weeks, and arguing that a reduction to 12 weeks would still allow the majority of procedures to take place. Did we really see that veteran anti-choice war-horse, Ann Widdecombe MP, walk into a division lobby in support of abortion in the first trimester? Tactics, tactics; it was all about tactics; it was all about what could be won.
Abortion politics in parliament today is about pragmatism more than principle. The anti-choice movement accepts that it cannot win support for an outright ban on abortion. The pro-choice movement accepts that politicians will set restrictions. Everything is about where the boundaries of provision are set. The discussion as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill shuffles towards its Report stage and final vote will be focused on the ‘politics of the possible’. And there is much that should be possible.
The ‘progressive’ or ‘modernising’ amendments that have been discussed by the pro-choice movement are so moderate that they were recommended by a recent House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. The possible amendments that will receive serious consideration will not ‘liberalise’ the abortion law, in the sense of making it easier for women to have abortions in circumstances which would now be restricted. They are modest measures that would make the provision of services more straightforward and less bound by out-of-date bureaucracy.
The current requirement for two doctors to certify that a woman meets the legal grounds for abortion has been questioned even by many parliamentarians who wished for a lower gestational limit. The two-doctors rule is not a clinical assessment and not linked to obtaining consent, which happens later during a medical consultation. The requirement was seen as essential in the 1960s to underline the gravity of the abortion decision, and to provide reassurance to doctors who were concerned that abortion referrals might be challenged and who thus drew confidence from a colleague’s ‘second signature’.
But today, when abortion referral is so common and it is accepted by officials that the law can be interpreted to provide abortion when a pregnancy is unwanted – because it is accepted that an unwanted pregnancy is a threat to mental health – the certification requirements have become nothing more than a tick-box exercise. The doctors are not even required to see the woman – both can sign ‘unseen’ – making their assessment on the basis of recommendations made by a nurse or counsellor. Currently, it is difficult to sustain an argument for why two doctors need to certify rather than one. It is even difficult to argue that it should be a doctor that signs rather than a nurse or other trained professional. An amendment to get rid of the ‘two doctors’ requirement would eliminate some unnecessary bureaucracy that can sometimes delay treatment and which wastes clinicians’ valuable time.
Currently the law insists that only doctors registered with the General Medical Council can perform abortions. This requirement means that nurses can only assist and not take responsibility for carrying out procedures. This is frustrating for nurses denied the possibility of developing and practicing skills that are seen as a normal part of nursing care in other countries. Early aspiration abortion procedures are less complicated than many procedures routinely undertaken by nurses, and nurses already lead many early medical abortion services – doing everything except prescribe the drugs.
Even the Royal College of Nurses, not the most radical of institutions, is solidly behind a reform that would allow nurses to take responsibility for abortion care – a move that would make it possible to increase access to early abortion by increasing the number of appointments, and improve the quality of care.
Forty years ago, when the Abortion Act was passed, abortions were a more complicated medical procedure, usually requiring an overnight stay in hospital, and legislators were concerned to ensure that women received appropriate clinical care in properly equipped clinics. Memories of ‘backstreet’ abortions were recent, and the legislation was designed to ensure they were eliminated.
But today, an increasing number of pregnancies are terminated by medication: the abortion pill. This is a procedure that does not fit easily into a clinical environment, and it would be best if the medication used to bring on the woman’s ‘miscarriage’ were taken in the comfort and privacy of her own home, as happens in the US and many European countries. Yet the law, as it stands, means that women must receive the drugs at a licensed clinic and then travel home. In effect this undermines the quality of care that clinics can provide, as it means that women are at risk of starting to cramp and bleed while they are travelling. The current requirement for places using the abortion pill to be licensed by the secretary of state for health excludes facilities that could meet the technical requirements for early medical abortion provision, and consequently denies women more local, easily accessible services.
And then there is the issue of Northern Ireland, which was excluded from the provisions of the Abortion Act in 1967, meaning that a woman in Newcastle, County Down, is denied a procedure that is available to a woman in Newscastle-upon-Tyne, unless she meets the cost and emotional burden of travelling to a clinic in England.
The Report stage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill provides an opportunity for these modernisation measures to be considered in the context of the previous House of Commons vote that endorsed the current time limit. The House of Commons has clearly endorsed legal abortion up to 24 weeks gestation. When abortion is legal, it should be provided to the highest standards, by appropriately qualified staff, in an appropriately equipped environment. The law should surely ensure this and not frustrate it, as it does currently.
There is a longer and more complex debate to be had about the place of abortion in modern society. Right now, the HFE Bill provides an opportunity to deliver a quick fix on areas of the law that are clearly broken.
Ann Furedi is chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the leading provider of abortion services in the UK. bpas is holding a conference in June on the ethics, politics and practice of abortion. A small number of bursary places are available for people unable to obtain funding.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
RTE Morning Ireland Audio Link: British MPs reject abortion limit cut
Cut and paste this link and follow news menu to British MPs reject abortion limit cut:
Wednesday May 21st
http://www.rte.ie/news/morningireland/
Wednesday May 21st
http://www.rte.ie/news/morningireland/
The Scotsman: Abortion Debate - MPs Reject Call For Time Limit Cut
Abortion debate: MPs reject call for time limit cut
Date: 21 May 2008
By GERRI PEEV AND EMILY PYKETT
AN ATTEMPT to lower the time limit for abortions in the UK has failed, after MPs last night resisted emotive pleas from pro life campaigners.
A bid to lower the maximum term for abortions from 24 weeks of conception to 22 weeks was defeated, alongside plans for a more drastic cut to 12 weeks.
It was the first time the issue of abortion had been debated as part of a government bill for 18 years. The last time was 1990, when abortion times were cut from 28 weeks. But months of behind the scenes campaigning from religious groups motivated MPs to introduce amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (HFE).
In three hours of impassioned debate, most of it on the anti abortion side, MPs discussed the scope for limiting the procedure. One of the main considerations was at what age an aborted foetus could survive.
There was evidence showing medical advances could help a baby as young as 25 weeks to survive, but scientists have argued that there is not enough proof to show any but a tiny percentage could live if born at 24 weeks or less.
Edward Leigh, a former Conservative minister and a father of six, put forward an amendment to bring the UK into line with the 12 week limit of other European countries, such as France, Portugal, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece and Spain.
This was rejected by 393 votes to 71. An attempt then to reduce abortion term limits to 16 weeks was also rejected by more than 300 MPs, while a bid to cut the time limit to 20 weeks was rejected by 332 to 190.
A much tighter vote came on the amendment proposing cutting the limit to 22 weeks, which was also rejected by 233 to 304; a majority of 71. Ahead of the vote, Mr Leigh made an impassioned plea.
"In modern Britain the most dangerous place to be is your mother's womb," he said. "It should be a place of sanctity."
He said that "98 per cent of abortions are social – only 1.3 per cent are for foetuses which are handicapped, 0.4 per cent are for risk to mother's life. It is a bleak picture of modern Britain."
Nadine Dorries, a Tory MP who unsuccessfully tried to introduce a private bill to limit abortions, described how she had been turned against them after witnessing abortions as a nurse. She recounted her experience of witnessing a "botched" abortion where a little boy survived for seven minutes.
"A live abortion became a death in seven minutes. I knew then that one day I would be able to stand up and defend children like him," she said. Claire Curtis Thomas, a Christian Labour MP, said she was not opposed to abortion, believing that women have the right to choose.
"I just hope they don't choose to have an abortion," she said, adding that she would be happier with a 12 week limit.
Mark Pritchard, a Conservative MP, called for the limit to be 16 weeks.
"I believe that terminating a child should be a choice of last resort – not the latest manifestation of Britain's throwaway society."
Mr Pritchard also brandished pictures of a foetus at 16 weeks, saying it showed a "living, small human being".
Mike Penning, the shadow health minister, argued that women should be given more time to think before they made the difficult decision to have an abortion.
He said the "sheer quantity" of repeat abortions was "enormously disturbing".
However, Christine McCafferty, a Labour MP, said restricting when a woman can have a termination "is just prolonging the agony".
Evan Harris, the Lib Dems' science spokesman and a doctor, said it was not the role of a GP to "hector or impose on women burdensome information about the methods of abortion" if they did not want to know.
But Anne Widdecombe, a former Tory minister and a Catholic, insisted that the rights of women were already limited at terminating a pregnancy up to 24 weeks. She added that if more people could see the babies that were being "wantonly, and I believe wickedly" killed, then there would be public uproar.
She added: "We have in this country a situation in which you can have two children, of exactly the same age and gestation – exactly the same – and one is in a cot with all the resources of medical science being poured into saving it and the other is quite deliberately being taken from the womb and destroyed.
"That is moral anarchy," she said. "That is a totally unjustifiable state of affairs."
Miss Widdecombe urged MPs to protect the most "vulnerable in our midst".
Dawn Primarolo, the UK health minister, said there was no scientific evidence to warrant a reduction in the time limit. She warned that reducing it would force a small number of women who sought late abortions to go elsewhere. And she asked: "Wouldn't it be appalling if we drove women back to where they were before the 1967 act?"
She also rejected calls to remove disability as a ground for abortion, asking: "Is it right to force a woman to carry a child ( with a serious handicap] until it dies in the womb, or is born with no chance of survival?"
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, earlier said he would vote to lower the limit to 22 weeks, although he expected colleagues to vote in all different ways. Nick Clegg, the Lib Dems' leader, was expected to reject any moves to restrict abortions. Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, voted against any reduction, after insisting there was no medical evidence to justify a change in the law.
Alex Salmond, the First Minister, also made a rare trip to take up his seat in the Commons. He was expected to have voted for a reduction in the abortion limit to 20 weeks. Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, Ruth Kelly, Transport Secretary and Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary, voted in favour of cutting the time limit to 12 weeks. It was the last in a series of free votes on amendments to the HFE Bill. Earlier, MPs voted to include an amendment which ensures clinics prescribing IVF consider a child's "need for a father". Under the present Bill, IVF clinics would only have to take account of the need for "supportive parenting".
And, on Monday, they rejected proposals to ban research using human animal embryos and the creation of so called "saviour siblings".
Despite the vote, abortion on demand remains illegal in the UK. A woman must have the consent of two doctors, on the grounds that a pregnancy will harm her health, before she receives to go ahead to have an abortion.
Pro-choice campaigners have argued that it is this requirement that often forces women to have abortions late. They have pointed out that in other European countries with much shorter term limits, women are granted abortions much more readily.
Following the vote, Louise Hutchins, the campaigns coordinator for Abortion Rights, said: "This was never about the time limit, but women's rights to access safe and legal abortions.
"But there is a long way to go yet. Now we want to see the end of the intolerable situation where women in Northern Ireland do not have any access to safe, legal abortions."
Anne Quesney, the head of advocacy at reproductive healthcare service Marie Stopes International, welcomed the vote as a "victory for common sense" and a defeat for a "minority religious lobby". She added: "(This vote] spells relief for women across the country.
"It is reassuring that a majority of MPs were wise to the emotive and misleading campaign that sought to chip away at women's reproductive rights, and disregarded it in exercising their votes."
Undeterred, pro-life campaigners vowed to start lobbying afresh to reduce the time limit on abortions.
Josephine Quintavalle, a spokeswoman for the Alive and Kicking Alliance, said: "It was always going to be a numbers game.
"We are not disappointed – this has shone the spotlight on the abortion debate for the first time in 18 years and we have seen how Labour MPs line up. This will influence our activities in the run up to the next election."
Ian Lucas, the campaign coordinator of the All Party Parliamentary Pro Life Group, said: "We are disappointed MPs have not seen fit to recognise the wishes of three quarters of the population by lowering the time limit. This comes despite pleas from many to recognise research which has shown that children younger than 24 weeks can survive."
Date: 21 May 2008
By GERRI PEEV AND EMILY PYKETT
AN ATTEMPT to lower the time limit for abortions in the UK has failed, after MPs last night resisted emotive pleas from pro life campaigners.
A bid to lower the maximum term for abortions from 24 weeks of conception to 22 weeks was defeated, alongside plans for a more drastic cut to 12 weeks.
It was the first time the issue of abortion had been debated as part of a government bill for 18 years. The last time was 1990, when abortion times were cut from 28 weeks. But months of behind the scenes campaigning from religious groups motivated MPs to introduce amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (HFE).
In three hours of impassioned debate, most of it on the anti abortion side, MPs discussed the scope for limiting the procedure. One of the main considerations was at what age an aborted foetus could survive.
There was evidence showing medical advances could help a baby as young as 25 weeks to survive, but scientists have argued that there is not enough proof to show any but a tiny percentage could live if born at 24 weeks or less.
Edward Leigh, a former Conservative minister and a father of six, put forward an amendment to bring the UK into line with the 12 week limit of other European countries, such as France, Portugal, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece and Spain.
This was rejected by 393 votes to 71. An attempt then to reduce abortion term limits to 16 weeks was also rejected by more than 300 MPs, while a bid to cut the time limit to 20 weeks was rejected by 332 to 190.
A much tighter vote came on the amendment proposing cutting the limit to 22 weeks, which was also rejected by 233 to 304; a majority of 71. Ahead of the vote, Mr Leigh made an impassioned plea.
"In modern Britain the most dangerous place to be is your mother's womb," he said. "It should be a place of sanctity."
He said that "98 per cent of abortions are social – only 1.3 per cent are for foetuses which are handicapped, 0.4 per cent are for risk to mother's life. It is a bleak picture of modern Britain."
Nadine Dorries, a Tory MP who unsuccessfully tried to introduce a private bill to limit abortions, described how she had been turned against them after witnessing abortions as a nurse. She recounted her experience of witnessing a "botched" abortion where a little boy survived for seven minutes.
"A live abortion became a death in seven minutes. I knew then that one day I would be able to stand up and defend children like him," she said. Claire Curtis Thomas, a Christian Labour MP, said she was not opposed to abortion, believing that women have the right to choose.
"I just hope they don't choose to have an abortion," she said, adding that she would be happier with a 12 week limit.
Mark Pritchard, a Conservative MP, called for the limit to be 16 weeks.
"I believe that terminating a child should be a choice of last resort – not the latest manifestation of Britain's throwaway society."
Mr Pritchard also brandished pictures of a foetus at 16 weeks, saying it showed a "living, small human being".
Mike Penning, the shadow health minister, argued that women should be given more time to think before they made the difficult decision to have an abortion.
He said the "sheer quantity" of repeat abortions was "enormously disturbing".
However, Christine McCafferty, a Labour MP, said restricting when a woman can have a termination "is just prolonging the agony".
Evan Harris, the Lib Dems' science spokesman and a doctor, said it was not the role of a GP to "hector or impose on women burdensome information about the methods of abortion" if they did not want to know.
But Anne Widdecombe, a former Tory minister and a Catholic, insisted that the rights of women were already limited at terminating a pregnancy up to 24 weeks. She added that if more people could see the babies that were being "wantonly, and I believe wickedly" killed, then there would be public uproar.
She added: "We have in this country a situation in which you can have two children, of exactly the same age and gestation – exactly the same – and one is in a cot with all the resources of medical science being poured into saving it and the other is quite deliberately being taken from the womb and destroyed.
"That is moral anarchy," she said. "That is a totally unjustifiable state of affairs."
Miss Widdecombe urged MPs to protect the most "vulnerable in our midst".
Dawn Primarolo, the UK health minister, said there was no scientific evidence to warrant a reduction in the time limit. She warned that reducing it would force a small number of women who sought late abortions to go elsewhere. And she asked: "Wouldn't it be appalling if we drove women back to where they were before the 1967 act?"
She also rejected calls to remove disability as a ground for abortion, asking: "Is it right to force a woman to carry a child ( with a serious handicap] until it dies in the womb, or is born with no chance of survival?"
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, earlier said he would vote to lower the limit to 22 weeks, although he expected colleagues to vote in all different ways. Nick Clegg, the Lib Dems' leader, was expected to reject any moves to restrict abortions. Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, voted against any reduction, after insisting there was no medical evidence to justify a change in the law.
Alex Salmond, the First Minister, also made a rare trip to take up his seat in the Commons. He was expected to have voted for a reduction in the abortion limit to 20 weeks. Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, Ruth Kelly, Transport Secretary and Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary, voted in favour of cutting the time limit to 12 weeks. It was the last in a series of free votes on amendments to the HFE Bill. Earlier, MPs voted to include an amendment which ensures clinics prescribing IVF consider a child's "need for a father". Under the present Bill, IVF clinics would only have to take account of the need for "supportive parenting".
And, on Monday, they rejected proposals to ban research using human animal embryos and the creation of so called "saviour siblings".
Despite the vote, abortion on demand remains illegal in the UK. A woman must have the consent of two doctors, on the grounds that a pregnancy will harm her health, before she receives to go ahead to have an abortion.
Pro-choice campaigners have argued that it is this requirement that often forces women to have abortions late. They have pointed out that in other European countries with much shorter term limits, women are granted abortions much more readily.
Following the vote, Louise Hutchins, the campaigns coordinator for Abortion Rights, said: "This was never about the time limit, but women's rights to access safe and legal abortions.
"But there is a long way to go yet. Now we want to see the end of the intolerable situation where women in Northern Ireland do not have any access to safe, legal abortions."
Anne Quesney, the head of advocacy at reproductive healthcare service Marie Stopes International, welcomed the vote as a "victory for common sense" and a defeat for a "minority religious lobby". She added: "(This vote] spells relief for women across the country.
"It is reassuring that a majority of MPs were wise to the emotive and misleading campaign that sought to chip away at women's reproductive rights, and disregarded it in exercising their votes."
Undeterred, pro-life campaigners vowed to start lobbying afresh to reduce the time limit on abortions.
Josephine Quintavalle, a spokeswoman for the Alive and Kicking Alliance, said: "It was always going to be a numbers game.
"We are not disappointed – this has shone the spotlight on the abortion debate for the first time in 18 years and we have seen how Labour MPs line up. This will influence our activities in the run up to the next election."
Ian Lucas, the campaign coordinator of the All Party Parliamentary Pro Life Group, said: "We are disappointed MPs have not seen fit to recognise the wishes of three quarters of the population by lowering the time limit. This comes despite pleas from many to recognise research which has shown that children younger than 24 weeks can survive."
Irish Medical Times: Abortion Access Eased
Irish Medical Times May 16th 2008
By Sandra Ryan
Abortion Access Eased
Access for drug induced abortions may become possible for Irish women travelling to the UK, following a pilot study showing that early medical abortions could be safely carried out in community health centres, GP surgeries and family planning clinics.
The study, carried out at Southampton University, showed that women welcomed the informality and increased availability of staff support, confirming the experience of other countries already offering early abortions using drugs.
Debate over the time limit for abortions has heated up this week in the UK, following proposals to cut the 24-week limit to 22 weeks, while making access to abortion easier for women.
But doctors have siad studies show there is no scientific justification for lowering the 24-week time limit. Research published in the latest British Medical Journal concludes there is no significant improvement in the survival of babies born before 24 weeks' gestation.
Chairman of the British Medical Association's Ethics Committee, Dr Tony Calland, said the work is the most up-to-date research on the survivval of premature babies. 'Although the vast majority of abortions take place in the first trimester there are still women who need abortion services later on in their pregnancy,' he said. 'To lower the limit would leave a number of women in dire circumstances.'
Meanwhile, a report by the Spanish Institute for Family Policies has found that the UK has the second-highest abortion rate (after France) in Europe with 194,353 terminations in 2006.
By Sandra Ryan
Abortion Access Eased
Access for drug induced abortions may become possible for Irish women travelling to the UK, following a pilot study showing that early medical abortions could be safely carried out in community health centres, GP surgeries and family planning clinics.
The study, carried out at Southampton University, showed that women welcomed the informality and increased availability of staff support, confirming the experience of other countries already offering early abortions using drugs.
Debate over the time limit for abortions has heated up this week in the UK, following proposals to cut the 24-week limit to 22 weeks, while making access to abortion easier for women.
But doctors have siad studies show there is no scientific justification for lowering the 24-week time limit. Research published in the latest British Medical Journal concludes there is no significant improvement in the survival of babies born before 24 weeks' gestation.
Chairman of the British Medical Association's Ethics Committee, Dr Tony Calland, said the work is the most up-to-date research on the survivval of premature babies. 'Although the vast majority of abortions take place in the first trimester there are still women who need abortion services later on in their pregnancy,' he said. 'To lower the limit would leave a number of women in dire circumstances.'
Meanwhile, a report by the Spanish Institute for Family Policies has found that the UK has the second-highest abortion rate (after France) in Europe with 194,353 terminations in 2006.
Letter in the Irish Times: Legislating for Abortion
Letter: Legislating for abortion - Irish Times Wednesday May 21st 2008
Madam, - This week the law governing abortion for Irish women faces a crucial vote on whether to reduce the cut-off period from 24 weeks to 20 weeks. The fact that this vote will take place in the parliament of the United Kingdom once again highlights the political establishment's inaction on the issue of abortion.
To be fair to the former Tánaiste, Minister for Justice and Attorney General Michael McDowell, he at least put forward an amendment to the Constitution which the people rejected in 2002. However, the time has now come to put in place legislation to deal with the issue.
It is estimated that 5,000 Irish women travel to the UK every year to have abortions. We can continue to allow UK politicians to decide the conditions under which these women face their terrible ordeal or we can do the right thing by the women of Ireland and decide on abortion laws ourselves.
It is time to drop the political mantra about abortion being "too divisive" for Irish people to debate. Politics should be about taking action and making decisions. The Irish women forced to travel to the UK deserve that at least. - Yours, etc,
Cllr JOHN KENNY
(Progressive Democrats),
Monkstown Valley,
Co Dublin.
Madam, - This week the law governing abortion for Irish women faces a crucial vote on whether to reduce the cut-off period from 24 weeks to 20 weeks. The fact that this vote will take place in the parliament of the United Kingdom once again highlights the political establishment's inaction on the issue of abortion.
To be fair to the former Tánaiste, Minister for Justice and Attorney General Michael McDowell, he at least put forward an amendment to the Constitution which the people rejected in 2002. However, the time has now come to put in place legislation to deal with the issue.
It is estimated that 5,000 Irish women travel to the UK every year to have abortions. We can continue to allow UK politicians to decide the conditions under which these women face their terrible ordeal or we can do the right thing by the women of Ireland and decide on abortion laws ourselves.
It is time to drop the political mantra about abortion being "too divisive" for Irish people to debate. Politics should be about taking action and making decisions. The Irish women forced to travel to the UK deserve that at least. - Yours, etc,
Cllr JOHN KENNY
(Progressive Democrats),
Monkstown Valley,
Co Dublin.
The Irish Times: Attempt To Cut Time Limit For Abortion Defeated
Attempt to cut UK time limit for abortion defeated - The Irish Times
Wednesday May 21st 2008
BRITAIN: AN attempt to cut the time-limit for abortion from 24 weeks to 12 weeks, was defeated in the British House of Commons last night. Voting was 71 to 393, a majority of 322.
Health minister Dawn Primarolo said there was no scientific evidence to warrant a reduction in the time limit. And she accused those opposed to abortion of trying to prevent it by moving a series of incremental reductions in the time limit.
"The upper limit was set by parliament in 1990 at 24 weeks because scientific evidence at the time was that the threshold of viability had increased.
"It has always been linked to the potential viability of the foetus outside of the womb. That was the case in 1967. It was the case in 1990 and certainly the case now."
She warned that reducing the limit would force a small number of women who sought late abortions to go elsewhere.
Former Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe asked if this should be the determining factor when, since 1990, there was a substantial body of evidence about foetal pain and distress.
Ms Primarolo said it was a difficult decision but there was no evidence that the viability threshold had changed.
"Wouldn't it be appalling if we drove women back to where they were before the 1967 Act," she said.
Ms Primarolo also rejected calls to remove disability as a ground for abortion, asking: "Is it right to force a woman to carry a child (with a serious handicap) until it dies in the womb or is born with no chance of survival?"
Labour's Judy Mallaber (Amber Valley) warned arguments over who was right and wrong could leave out the person at the centre of the debate - the mother.
She said: "All too often the woman is left out of this discussion - she becomes invisible - and women have different moral views on whether abortion is acceptable and if so the circumstances in which it is acceptable."
Women never took the decision to have an abortion lightly, she added, saying it was "always a difficult decision".
And she said moral views on the subject were so divided that "we should not seek to impose our views on each other".
Ms Mallaber also warned that a reduction in the limit to 16 weeks could lead to an increase in women seeking "backstreet abortions".
Reducing the limit to 20 or 22 weeks could also lead to some women being "panicked" into having abortions rather than carrying the baby to term.- (PA)
Wednesday May 21st 2008
BRITAIN: AN attempt to cut the time-limit for abortion from 24 weeks to 12 weeks, was defeated in the British House of Commons last night. Voting was 71 to 393, a majority of 322.
Health minister Dawn Primarolo said there was no scientific evidence to warrant a reduction in the time limit. And she accused those opposed to abortion of trying to prevent it by moving a series of incremental reductions in the time limit.
"The upper limit was set by parliament in 1990 at 24 weeks because scientific evidence at the time was that the threshold of viability had increased.
"It has always been linked to the potential viability of the foetus outside of the womb. That was the case in 1967. It was the case in 1990 and certainly the case now."
She warned that reducing the limit would force a small number of women who sought late abortions to go elsewhere.
Former Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe asked if this should be the determining factor when, since 1990, there was a substantial body of evidence about foetal pain and distress.
Ms Primarolo said it was a difficult decision but there was no evidence that the viability threshold had changed.
"Wouldn't it be appalling if we drove women back to where they were before the 1967 Act," she said.
Ms Primarolo also rejected calls to remove disability as a ground for abortion, asking: "Is it right to force a woman to carry a child (with a serious handicap) until it dies in the womb or is born with no chance of survival?"
Labour's Judy Mallaber (Amber Valley) warned arguments over who was right and wrong could leave out the person at the centre of the debate - the mother.
She said: "All too often the woman is left out of this discussion - she becomes invisible - and women have different moral views on whether abortion is acceptable and if so the circumstances in which it is acceptable."
Women never took the decision to have an abortion lightly, she added, saying it was "always a difficult decision".
And she said moral views on the subject were so divided that "we should not seek to impose our views on each other".
Ms Mallaber also warned that a reduction in the limit to 16 weeks could lead to an increase in women seeking "backstreet abortions".
Reducing the limit to 20 or 22 weeks could also lead to some women being "panicked" into having abortions rather than carrying the baby to term.- (PA)
Irish Examiner: MPs Reject Bid To Cut Abortion Limits
The Irish Examiner Wednesday May 21st 2008
MPs Reject Bid To Cut Abortion Limits
Attempts to cut the 24-week upper limit for abortions to 12, 16, and 20 weeks have been rejected by MPs in the British House of Commons. The proposed cut came in an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.
Tory MP Nadine Dorries, who proposed the 20-week limit, said she was not anti-abortion but said ‘the baby involved had rights’
But Pro-choice campaigners dismissed efforts to cut limits as ‘cynical’. Earlier Tory MP Edward Leigh, who proposed the 12-week limit, said it would bring Britain in line with most of Europe. But Labour’s Chris McCafferty said the limit was ‘cynical and inhumane’.
It is the second day of the debate on the bill, and comes after MPs voted down a cross-party attempt to ban hybrid animal embryos. MPs also rejected a cross-party move for doctors to consider the need for a ‘father and mother’ before allowing IVF treatment.
British Health Minister Dawn Primarolo insists there is no evidence requiring the abortion laws to be changed. The upper gestational limit for termination of pregnancy was set by the British Parliament in 1990 at 24 weeks because the scientific evidence of the time was that the threshold of viability had increased and babies were increasingly surviving at 24 weeks and above. ‘That was the case in 1990 and it’s certainly the case now.’ But, David Jones, a professor of bio-ethics, said research on the survival rates for extremely premature babies was ‘disputed’.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would vote to maintain the current limit, while Conservative leader David Cameron said he would vote to lower the limit to 22 weeks, which they were still voting on last night at the time of going to press. Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who put forward the amendment to change the abortion laws, said she believed the right of a woman to choose had its limits. She reached this decision after seeing the ‘botched’ abortion of a baby boy when she was a gynaecological nurse. ‘I believe a baby has rights. Those rights kick in if that baby were born it would have a chance of life and if it feels pain as part of the abortion,’ she said.
MPs Reject Bid To Cut Abortion Limits
Attempts to cut the 24-week upper limit for abortions to 12, 16, and 20 weeks have been rejected by MPs in the British House of Commons. The proposed cut came in an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.
Tory MP Nadine Dorries, who proposed the 20-week limit, said she was not anti-abortion but said ‘the baby involved had rights’
But Pro-choice campaigners dismissed efforts to cut limits as ‘cynical’. Earlier Tory MP Edward Leigh, who proposed the 12-week limit, said it would bring Britain in line with most of Europe. But Labour’s Chris McCafferty said the limit was ‘cynical and inhumane’.
It is the second day of the debate on the bill, and comes after MPs voted down a cross-party attempt to ban hybrid animal embryos. MPs also rejected a cross-party move for doctors to consider the need for a ‘father and mother’ before allowing IVF treatment.
British Health Minister Dawn Primarolo insists there is no evidence requiring the abortion laws to be changed. The upper gestational limit for termination of pregnancy was set by the British Parliament in 1990 at 24 weeks because the scientific evidence of the time was that the threshold of viability had increased and babies were increasingly surviving at 24 weeks and above. ‘That was the case in 1990 and it’s certainly the case now.’ But, David Jones, a professor of bio-ethics, said research on the survival rates for extremely premature babies was ‘disputed’.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would vote to maintain the current limit, while Conservative leader David Cameron said he would vote to lower the limit to 22 weeks, which they were still voting on last night at the time of going to press. Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who put forward the amendment to change the abortion laws, said she believed the right of a woman to choose had its limits. She reached this decision after seeing the ‘botched’ abortion of a baby boy when she was a gynaecological nurse. ‘I believe a baby has rights. Those rights kick in if that baby were born it would have a chance of life and if it feels pain as part of the abortion,’ she said.
Statement from Marie Stopes International
21 May 2008
Following the outcome of the Parliamentary debate on the upper limit of abortion in the UK, Marie Stopes International issues the following statement:
STATEMENT BY MARIE STOPES INTERNATIONAL FOLLOWING LAST NIGHT'S HOUSE OF COMMONS VOTE TO RETAIN THE ABORTION TIME LIMIT
Last night's vote to retain the 24 week time limit spells relief for women across the country. It is reassuring that a majority of MPs were wise to the emotive and misleading campaign that sought to chip away at women’s reproductive rights, and disregarded it in exercising their votes.
The case for reducing the time limit on abortion derived from a minority religious lobby and had been deceptively based upon both the notion that there are ‘too many abortions’ in the UK and also to the issue of foetal viability. In fact the number of women who have abortions between 20 and 24 weeks amounts to less than 2% of the total, meaning a reduction in the time limit would have a negligible effect upon total numbers. Furthermore, the medical establishment has remained united in refuting the notion that foetuses are now ‘more viable’ below 24 weeks than before. Tonight MPs defeated a series of anti-choice amendments echoing medical consensus.
MPs’ views are also in line with the majority of British women of reproductive age – 61% of whom said there are circumstances in which they think a woman should have the right to access an abortion between 20 and 24 weeks. The survey, published ahead of the vote by Ipsos MORI on behalf of Marie Stopes International, showed that women were sympathetic to their peers accessing a later abortion.
The potential circumstances listed were:
The foetus is diagnosed with severe abnormalities
She was raped
The pregnancy places her own health at risk
She has an abusive partner
She was delayed by her doctor
She did not realise earlier that she was pregnant
She is young and has been in denial of pregnancy signs
Her partner has left her during the pregnancy
Other
“Having secured this victory for common sense, compassion towards women’s needs and sound medical science, it’s now time to look forward to the next stage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill,” said Marie Stopes International’s Head of Advocacy, Anne Quesney.
“We expect to see progressive amendments introduced that will improve current legislation, not least the removal of the archaic requirement for two doctors to give permission before any abortion may be performed.”
Following the outcome of the Parliamentary debate on the upper limit of abortion in the UK, Marie Stopes International issues the following statement:
STATEMENT BY MARIE STOPES INTERNATIONAL FOLLOWING LAST NIGHT'S HOUSE OF COMMONS VOTE TO RETAIN THE ABORTION TIME LIMIT
Last night's vote to retain the 24 week time limit spells relief for women across the country. It is reassuring that a majority of MPs were wise to the emotive and misleading campaign that sought to chip away at women’s reproductive rights, and disregarded it in exercising their votes.
The case for reducing the time limit on abortion derived from a minority religious lobby and had been deceptively based upon both the notion that there are ‘too many abortions’ in the UK and also to the issue of foetal viability. In fact the number of women who have abortions between 20 and 24 weeks amounts to less than 2% of the total, meaning a reduction in the time limit would have a negligible effect upon total numbers. Furthermore, the medical establishment has remained united in refuting the notion that foetuses are now ‘more viable’ below 24 weeks than before. Tonight MPs defeated a series of anti-choice amendments echoing medical consensus.
MPs’ views are also in line with the majority of British women of reproductive age – 61% of whom said there are circumstances in which they think a woman should have the right to access an abortion between 20 and 24 weeks. The survey, published ahead of the vote by Ipsos MORI on behalf of Marie Stopes International, showed that women were sympathetic to their peers accessing a later abortion.
The potential circumstances listed were:
The foetus is diagnosed with severe abnormalities
She was raped
The pregnancy places her own health at risk
She has an abusive partner
She was delayed by her doctor
She did not realise earlier that she was pregnant
She is young and has been in denial of pregnancy signs
Her partner has left her during the pregnancy
Other
“Having secured this victory for common sense, compassion towards women’s needs and sound medical science, it’s now time to look forward to the next stage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill,” said Marie Stopes International’s Head of Advocacy, Anne Quesney.
“We expect to see progressive amendments introduced that will improve current legislation, not least the removal of the archaic requirement for two doctors to give permission before any abortion may be performed.”
MPs Throw Out Bids to Reduce Abortion Limit
MPs throw out bids to reduce abortion limit- The Independent
By Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
Abortions will remain legal for up to 24 weeks into pregnancy after MPs rejected a series of attempts to cut the limit after an impassioned debate in the House of Commons.
In the first test of parliamentary opinion on abortion for 18 years, supporters of a reduction called votes on reducing the limit to 12, 16, 20 and 22 weeks.
But they were thrown out by decreasing majorities, with calls for the 22-week maximum defeated by 304 to 233 votes, a margin of 71. Cheers erupted in the Commons chamber as the final result was announced late last night. David Cameron, the Tory leader, supported 20- and 22-week limits. But Gordon Brown and much of his Cabinet favoured retaining the current 24-week maximum.
Campaigners for a lower limit argued that foetuses were becoming viable at earlier stages of pregnancy and protested that most other European countries banned abortions at such a late stage. Opponents of the move insisted that only a tiny minority of terminations took place after 20 weeks and then mainly on medical grounds. They also maintained that attempts to reduce the limit were the "cynical" opening shots of an attack against abortion in general.
The party leaders granted free votes on a succession of amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which modernises legislation on stem cell research and reproductive medicine.
Emotions ran high – and traditional party loyalties became blurred – during the three-hour debate on abortion. Edward Leigh, a former Conservative minister, who proposed a 12-week limit, said public opinion had shifted in favour of a reduction and argued that abortion laws were "out of step" with many other countries.
He told MPs: "We believe an unborn child of 12 weeks has undeniable human characteristics – her organs, her muscles, her nerves have begun to function. She has fingernails and toenails She needs nothing more than a few months to stay in the safety of her mother's womb for her to become a child."
The Tory MP Nadine Dorries, who argued for a 20-week limit, said there had to be limits to a woman's right to choose. She said she had reached this view after witnessing the "botched" abortion of a male foetus in her former career as a gynaecological nurse.
She said: "I believe a baby has rights. Those rights kick in when if that baby were born it would have a chance of life and if it feels pain as part of the abortion."
Abortion was legalised in 1967 and the upper limit for terminations reduced from 28 to 24 weeks in 1990, the last time the issue was put to MPs.
Dawn Primarolo, the Health minister, said there was no scientific evidence to warrant a further reduction in the limit.
She said: "It has always been linked to the potential viability of the foetus outside of the womb. That was the case in 1967. It was the case in 1990 and certainly the case now."
Four lower limits were put to MPs in a series of votes. They first threw out a call to bring in a 12-week maximum by 393 votes to 71, a majority of 322.
Supporters of this limit included three Roman Catholic cabinet ministers – Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, and Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary.
A move to reduce the limit to 16 weeks was defeated by 387 votes to 84, a margin of 303.
A 20-week maximum, was rejected by 332 votes to 190, a majority of 142. The closest vote was the last, when a 22-week limit was defeated by 304 votes to 233, a majority of 71 and a wider margin than some MPs had expected.
That defeat meant that the current 24-week limit automatically stays in place and the scale of the votes means a fresh attempt to cut the limit is unlikely for several years.
A series of contentious issues were aired during two days of debate in the committee stage of the Bill.
On Monday MPs approved the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos for research and of genetically matched "saviour siblings" to help seriously ill older brothers or sisters. They also removed the requirement for clinics to consider a child's "need for a father" before single mothers and lesbian couples are given fertility treatment.
But the abortion debate proved the most heated. The Labour MP Julie Morgan said that many of those seeking to cut the time limit were "anti-abortion". She said: "Any attempt to reduce the abortion limit of 24 weeks, even to 22 weeks, is an attack on abortion generally."
Ann Widdecombe, a former Tory minister, warned of "moral anarchy" over the treatment of babies.
She said: "We have in this country at the moment a situation in which you can have two children, of exactly the same age and gestation – exactly the same – and one is in a cot with all the resources of medical science being poured into saving it and the other is quite deliberately being taken from the womb and destroyed."
After the votes, the Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, one of the most vocal supporters of the existing limit, accused anti-abortion MPs of using "made-up statistics".
But the Labour MP Ian Lucas said: "We are disappointed MPs have not seen fit to recognise the wishes of three quarters of the population by lowering the time limit. We will continue the fight to reflect the wishes of the public, and support the rights of the unborn child."
The law and medical evidence
The 1967 Abortion Act, which resulted from a private member's bill brought by David Steel MP, is still the law governing abortions in England, Scotland and Wales. The legal time limit for abortions was 28 weeks.
The Act does not apply in Northern Ireland, where abortion is permitted only in cases where the mother's life is at risk, or her pregnancy endangers her mental or physical health.
The Human Embryology and Human Fertilisation Act 1990 brought the limit down to 24 weeks. It permitted abortion after 24 weeks if the woman's life was at grave risk, if she was at grave risk of physical or mental injury, and if there was evidence of severe foetal abnormality. In 2006, 193,000 abortions were performed. Of those, 89 per cent took place before 13 weeks and 1.5 per cent were after 20 weeks. Of those after 20 weeks, 90 per cent were performed between 22 and 24 weeks.
A study last month in the British Medical Journal compared severely premature births in England in 2006 with those in 1995. At 24 weeks, 47 per cent survived compared with 35 per cent in 1995. At 25 weeks, 67 per cent lived compared with 54 per cent in 1995. Survival rates among those born at 23 weeks rose from 19 per cent to 26 per cent, but the results were not thought statistically significant.
---
By Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
Abortions will remain legal for up to 24 weeks into pregnancy after MPs rejected a series of attempts to cut the limit after an impassioned debate in the House of Commons.
In the first test of parliamentary opinion on abortion for 18 years, supporters of a reduction called votes on reducing the limit to 12, 16, 20 and 22 weeks.
But they were thrown out by decreasing majorities, with calls for the 22-week maximum defeated by 304 to 233 votes, a margin of 71. Cheers erupted in the Commons chamber as the final result was announced late last night. David Cameron, the Tory leader, supported 20- and 22-week limits. But Gordon Brown and much of his Cabinet favoured retaining the current 24-week maximum.
Campaigners for a lower limit argued that foetuses were becoming viable at earlier stages of pregnancy and protested that most other European countries banned abortions at such a late stage. Opponents of the move insisted that only a tiny minority of terminations took place after 20 weeks and then mainly on medical grounds. They also maintained that attempts to reduce the limit were the "cynical" opening shots of an attack against abortion in general.
The party leaders granted free votes on a succession of amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which modernises legislation on stem cell research and reproductive medicine.
Emotions ran high – and traditional party loyalties became blurred – during the three-hour debate on abortion. Edward Leigh, a former Conservative minister, who proposed a 12-week limit, said public opinion had shifted in favour of a reduction and argued that abortion laws were "out of step" with many other countries.
He told MPs: "We believe an unborn child of 12 weeks has undeniable human characteristics – her organs, her muscles, her nerves have begun to function. She has fingernails and toenails She needs nothing more than a few months to stay in the safety of her mother's womb for her to become a child."
The Tory MP Nadine Dorries, who argued for a 20-week limit, said there had to be limits to a woman's right to choose. She said she had reached this view after witnessing the "botched" abortion of a male foetus in her former career as a gynaecological nurse.
She said: "I believe a baby has rights. Those rights kick in when if that baby were born it would have a chance of life and if it feels pain as part of the abortion."
Abortion was legalised in 1967 and the upper limit for terminations reduced from 28 to 24 weeks in 1990, the last time the issue was put to MPs.
Dawn Primarolo, the Health minister, said there was no scientific evidence to warrant a further reduction in the limit.
She said: "It has always been linked to the potential viability of the foetus outside of the womb. That was the case in 1967. It was the case in 1990 and certainly the case now."
Four lower limits were put to MPs in a series of votes. They first threw out a call to bring in a 12-week maximum by 393 votes to 71, a majority of 322.
Supporters of this limit included three Roman Catholic cabinet ministers – Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, and Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary.
A move to reduce the limit to 16 weeks was defeated by 387 votes to 84, a margin of 303.
A 20-week maximum, was rejected by 332 votes to 190, a majority of 142. The closest vote was the last, when a 22-week limit was defeated by 304 votes to 233, a majority of 71 and a wider margin than some MPs had expected.
That defeat meant that the current 24-week limit automatically stays in place and the scale of the votes means a fresh attempt to cut the limit is unlikely for several years.
A series of contentious issues were aired during two days of debate in the committee stage of the Bill.
On Monday MPs approved the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos for research and of genetically matched "saviour siblings" to help seriously ill older brothers or sisters. They also removed the requirement for clinics to consider a child's "need for a father" before single mothers and lesbian couples are given fertility treatment.
But the abortion debate proved the most heated. The Labour MP Julie Morgan said that many of those seeking to cut the time limit were "anti-abortion". She said: "Any attempt to reduce the abortion limit of 24 weeks, even to 22 weeks, is an attack on abortion generally."
Ann Widdecombe, a former Tory minister, warned of "moral anarchy" over the treatment of babies.
She said: "We have in this country at the moment a situation in which you can have two children, of exactly the same age and gestation – exactly the same – and one is in a cot with all the resources of medical science being poured into saving it and the other is quite deliberately being taken from the womb and destroyed."
After the votes, the Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, one of the most vocal supporters of the existing limit, accused anti-abortion MPs of using "made-up statistics".
But the Labour MP Ian Lucas said: "We are disappointed MPs have not seen fit to recognise the wishes of three quarters of the population by lowering the time limit. We will continue the fight to reflect the wishes of the public, and support the rights of the unborn child."
The law and medical evidence
The 1967 Abortion Act, which resulted from a private member's bill brought by David Steel MP, is still the law governing abortions in England, Scotland and Wales. The legal time limit for abortions was 28 weeks.
The Act does not apply in Northern Ireland, where abortion is permitted only in cases where the mother's life is at risk, or her pregnancy endangers her mental or physical health.
The Human Embryology and Human Fertilisation Act 1990 brought the limit down to 24 weeks. It permitted abortion after 24 weeks if the woman's life was at grave risk, if she was at grave risk of physical or mental injury, and if there was evidence of severe foetal abnormality. In 2006, 193,000 abortions were performed. Of those, 89 per cent took place before 13 weeks and 1.5 per cent were after 20 weeks. Of those after 20 weeks, 90 per cent were performed between 22 and 24 weeks.
A study last month in the British Medical Journal compared severely premature births in England in 2006 with those in 1995. At 24 weeks, 47 per cent survived compared with 35 per cent in 1995. At 25 weeks, 67 per cent lived compared with 54 per cent in 1995. Survival rates among those born at 23 weeks rose from 19 per cent to 26 per cent, but the results were not thought statistically significant.
---
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
SKY NEWS: Stormy Clash Over Abortion Vote
Stormy Clash Likely Over Abortion Vote
Jon Craig
Chief political correspondent Tuesday May 20, 2008
A stormy Commons showdown is expected later today as MPs vote on moves to cut the time limit on abortion from 24 weeks to as low as 12 weeks.
Moves to cut abortion time limit
The confrontation comes at the end of two days of clashes on the Government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, even though the Bill does not mention abortion.
Backed by David Cameron, Tory MP and former nurse Nadine Dorries will propose an amendment to the Bill demanding a cut in the time limit to 20 weeks, while other MPs will propose 22, 18, 16, 14 and 12 weeks.
MPs will clash on a Government move to change the law on fertility treatment, replacing the present obligation on clinics to consider a child's "need for a father" with "need for supportive parenting".
The Government's aim is to avoid discrimination against single and lesbian women.
But opponents, led by the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, will argue that the absence of a father is detrimental to children.
Today's votes come after the Government comfortably defeated moves to ban embryo research and so-called "saviour siblings" on the first day of the Commons committee stage debating the Bill.
Three Roman Catholic Cabinet ministers - Ruth Kelly, Des Browne and Paul Murphy - took advantage of a free vote to vote against the Government and back two separate amendments moved by Tory MPs on embryo research.
Vote to ban embryo research
The first was an amendment tabled by Tory former minister Edward Leigh to outlaw the creation of hybrid embryos to be harvested for stem cell research, which was defeated by 336 to 176, a 160 majority.
The second, tabled in the name of Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley and his deputy Mark Simmonds, to ban so-called "true hybrids" was also defeated, this time by the narrower margin of 286 to 223, a 63 majority.
Later, an amendment aiming to prevent parents selecting embryos to produce children whose genetic material could help treat a sick brother or sister was defeated by 342 to 163, a majority of 179.
Jon Craig
Chief political correspondent Tuesday May 20, 2008
A stormy Commons showdown is expected later today as MPs vote on moves to cut the time limit on abortion from 24 weeks to as low as 12 weeks.
Moves to cut abortion time limit
The confrontation comes at the end of two days of clashes on the Government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, even though the Bill does not mention abortion.
Backed by David Cameron, Tory MP and former nurse Nadine Dorries will propose an amendment to the Bill demanding a cut in the time limit to 20 weeks, while other MPs will propose 22, 18, 16, 14 and 12 weeks.
MPs will clash on a Government move to change the law on fertility treatment, replacing the present obligation on clinics to consider a child's "need for a father" with "need for supportive parenting".
The Government's aim is to avoid discrimination against single and lesbian women.
But opponents, led by the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, will argue that the absence of a father is detrimental to children.
Today's votes come after the Government comfortably defeated moves to ban embryo research and so-called "saviour siblings" on the first day of the Commons committee stage debating the Bill.
Three Roman Catholic Cabinet ministers - Ruth Kelly, Des Browne and Paul Murphy - took advantage of a free vote to vote against the Government and back two separate amendments moved by Tory MPs on embryo research.
Vote to ban embryo research
The first was an amendment tabled by Tory former minister Edward Leigh to outlaw the creation of hybrid embryos to be harvested for stem cell research, which was defeated by 336 to 176, a 160 majority.
The second, tabled in the name of Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley and his deputy Mark Simmonds, to ban so-called "true hybrids" was also defeated, this time by the narrower margin of 286 to 223, a 63 majority.
Later, an amendment aiming to prevent parents selecting embryos to produce children whose genetic material could help treat a sick brother or sister was defeated by 342 to 163, a majority of 179.
RTE NEWS: British MPs To Vote on Abortion Limits
British MPs to vote on abortion limits
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
MPs at Westminster will vote this evening on whether or not to reduce the upper 24-week time limit for a legal abortion in Britain.
Last night they voted to allow the creation of hybrid human-animal embryos for medical research.
Around 200,000 legal abortions are carried out on women in Britain each year. At least 5,000 of those women give addresses in Ireland.
AdvertisementThis evening MPs will vote on a series of amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which could reduce the legal limit at which an abortion could take place from 24 weeks to 22, 20 or even 16 weeks.
Much of the debate so far has centred on whether or not advances in medical science since abortion was first legalised in Britain 40 years ago have improved the viability of a foetus outside the womb below 24 weeks.
The issue is particularly controversial and MPs will be allowed to vote according to their consciences rather than along party lines.
The outcome is expected to be close.
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
MPs at Westminster will vote this evening on whether or not to reduce the upper 24-week time limit for a legal abortion in Britain.
Last night they voted to allow the creation of hybrid human-animal embryos for medical research.
Around 200,000 legal abortions are carried out on women in Britain each year. At least 5,000 of those women give addresses in Ireland.
AdvertisementThis evening MPs will vote on a series of amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which could reduce the legal limit at which an abortion could take place from 24 weeks to 22, 20 or even 16 weeks.
Much of the debate so far has centred on whether or not advances in medical science since abortion was first legalised in Britain 40 years ago have improved the viability of a foetus outside the womb below 24 weeks.
The issue is particularly controversial and MPs will be allowed to vote according to their consciences rather than along party lines.
The outcome is expected to be close.
FPA UK: MPs Must Stop The Campaign To End Abortion In Britain
MPs Must Stop The Campaign To End Abortion In Britain, Says fpa, UK
20 May 2008
Speaking ahead of the parliamentary vote on abortion taking place on Tuesday 20th May, Julie Bentley, Chief Executive, fpa said:
"If the time limit is reduced on Tuesday, abortion law in Britain will have reached the historic moment when it's cut loose from common consensus and medical opinion. MPs thinking of voting to cut the time limit to under 24 weeks must know they will be supporting a campaign whose end goal is to make abortion illegal in Britain. This path is already well - travelled in the USA, where more and more restrictions to abortion are enforced."
"A change in the 24 week time limit, will not just affect women in Britain, women in Northern Ireland denied access to abortion in their own country will be affected too. Women like Mary, whose real story is highlighted below, will have no choice but to face the trauma of giving birth to a baby that will only live a few minutes. The only outcome of a cut in the limit will be that the number of women across Britain and Northern Ireland forced into giving birth, will be greater than the number of babies surviving at 23 weeks."
Case study from fpa in Belfast, Northern Ireland
Mary's story
At a routine 20 week scan in a hospital in Northern Ireland, Mary and Chris' much-wanted baby was diagnosed with severe fetal abnormalities. The hospital told Mary that because all the staff are conscientious objectors, they would refuse to give her an abortion. Instead, they referred Mary to a hospital in another Northern Ireland city.
Following advanced diagnostic tests it became plain the baby was severely disabled and wouldn't live to make it out of the delivery room. The second city hospital also refused to give Mary an abortion - she was a referral they told her - and not their patient.
The midwife gave Mary fpa's number. Mary phoned fpa from a public phone box in the hospital corridor hysterical, distressed and completely isolated. After counselling, she decided to pay £2,000 for her and Chris to travel to London and pay for a private abortion. When she had her abortion, she was 23 weeks pregnant.
20 May 2008
Speaking ahead of the parliamentary vote on abortion taking place on Tuesday 20th May, Julie Bentley, Chief Executive, fpa said:
"If the time limit is reduced on Tuesday, abortion law in Britain will have reached the historic moment when it's cut loose from common consensus and medical opinion. MPs thinking of voting to cut the time limit to under 24 weeks must know they will be supporting a campaign whose end goal is to make abortion illegal in Britain. This path is already well - travelled in the USA, where more and more restrictions to abortion are enforced."
"A change in the 24 week time limit, will not just affect women in Britain, women in Northern Ireland denied access to abortion in their own country will be affected too. Women like Mary, whose real story is highlighted below, will have no choice but to face the trauma of giving birth to a baby that will only live a few minutes. The only outcome of a cut in the limit will be that the number of women across Britain and Northern Ireland forced into giving birth, will be greater than the number of babies surviving at 23 weeks."
Case study from fpa in Belfast, Northern Ireland
Mary's story
At a routine 20 week scan in a hospital in Northern Ireland, Mary and Chris' much-wanted baby was diagnosed with severe fetal abnormalities. The hospital told Mary that because all the staff are conscientious objectors, they would refuse to give her an abortion. Instead, they referred Mary to a hospital in another Northern Ireland city.
Following advanced diagnostic tests it became plain the baby was severely disabled and wouldn't live to make it out of the delivery room. The second city hospital also refused to give Mary an abortion - she was a referral they told her - and not their patient.
The midwife gave Mary fpa's number. Mary phoned fpa from a public phone box in the hospital corridor hysterical, distressed and completely isolated. After counselling, she decided to pay £2,000 for her and Chris to travel to London and pay for a private abortion. When she had her abortion, she was 23 weeks pregnant.
BBC NEWS: MPs To Vote on Abortion Limit Cut
MPs to vote on abortion limit cut
Two abortion experts explain their views
MPs are to vote on the emotive issue of cutting the abortion time limit on the second day of debates on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.
On Monday night a cross-party attempt to ban hybrid human animal embryos was defeated on a free vote, by 336 to 176.
MPs will now debate the abortion laws and decide on changes in a free vote.
An amendment to the government's bill has been put forward to reduce the upper time limit on abortions from 24 weeks to 20 weeks or less.
Health Minister Dawn Primarolo insists there is no evidence requiring the abortion laws to be changed.
She told BBC News: "There is no science that shows us that the survival rates have changed since we took the decision to have the time limit at 24 weeks."
ENGLAND AND WALES ABORTIONS
Under 9 weeks: 54.9%
9-12 weeks: 34.3%
13-19 weeks: 9.2%
20-24 weeks: 1.5%
ONS figures from 2006
She also said the government wanted to protect the right of women to choose.
However, David Jones, a professor of bio-ethics, said research on the survival rates for extremely premature babies was "disputed".
Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who put forward the amendment to change the abortion laws, said she believed the right of a woman to choose had its limits.
She said: "If a baby feels pain as part of a barbaric abortion process - which is what happens post-20 weeks - and if we know that baby could live if it was allowed to be born, then there comes the point when that baby has rights which are of equal parity to the mother's."
'Difficult matter'
Conservative leader David Cameron told GMTV earlier he would vote to lower the limit to 22 weeks but added, as an issue of conscience, he expected Conservatives to vote "in all sorts of different directions".
Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the BBC he would vote to maintain the current limit. He said it was a "very difficult matter" but that the medical evidence had not changed.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg is also expected to vote against any reduction.
We are expecting considerable support and believe the government could be defeated
Ian Lucas
Pro-Life campaign
Government figures show that 193,737 women in England and Wales had an abortion in 2006.
Previous attempts to force a vote on lowering the abortion limit have been defeated, but as there is a free vote on the issue, an unknown number of MPs may choose to stay away, or abstain.
That increases the chances of those campaigning to lower the limit to 20 or 22 weeks, who claim to have the backing of 200 MPs.
Need for father
Ian Lucas, the campaign manager of the Pro-Life Group, said: "We are expecting considerable support and believe the government could be defeated."
Before the abortion limit vote, MPs will debate and vote on the role of fathers in IVF.
Existing legislation requires IVF clinics to consider the "welfare" of any child created, which currently means considering the need for a father.
HAVE YOUR SAY This is about a woman having the right to choose what happens to her body Leana, Shropshire
However, the new bill says this should no longer be the case, saying instead there needs to be evidence of "supportive parenting".
On Monday night a cross-party attempt to ban hybrid animal embryos was defeated.
Roman Catholic cabinet ministers Ruth Kelly, Des Browne and Paul Murphy voted for a ban, while Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Tory leader David Cameron both opposed it.
And a bid to ban "saviour siblings" was voted down by 342 votes to 163.
The votes followed two impassioned debates in the committee stage of the bill, aimed at updating laws from 1990 in line with scientific advances.
Story from BBC NEWS
Two abortion experts explain their views
MPs are to vote on the emotive issue of cutting the abortion time limit on the second day of debates on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.
On Monday night a cross-party attempt to ban hybrid human animal embryos was defeated on a free vote, by 336 to 176.
MPs will now debate the abortion laws and decide on changes in a free vote.
An amendment to the government's bill has been put forward to reduce the upper time limit on abortions from 24 weeks to 20 weeks or less.
Health Minister Dawn Primarolo insists there is no evidence requiring the abortion laws to be changed.
She told BBC News: "There is no science that shows us that the survival rates have changed since we took the decision to have the time limit at 24 weeks."
ENGLAND AND WALES ABORTIONS
Under 9 weeks: 54.9%
9-12 weeks: 34.3%
13-19 weeks: 9.2%
20-24 weeks: 1.5%
ONS figures from 2006
She also said the government wanted to protect the right of women to choose.
However, David Jones, a professor of bio-ethics, said research on the survival rates for extremely premature babies was "disputed".
Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who put forward the amendment to change the abortion laws, said she believed the right of a woman to choose had its limits.
She said: "If a baby feels pain as part of a barbaric abortion process - which is what happens post-20 weeks - and if we know that baby could live if it was allowed to be born, then there comes the point when that baby has rights which are of equal parity to the mother's."
'Difficult matter'
Conservative leader David Cameron told GMTV earlier he would vote to lower the limit to 22 weeks but added, as an issue of conscience, he expected Conservatives to vote "in all sorts of different directions".
Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the BBC he would vote to maintain the current limit. He said it was a "very difficult matter" but that the medical evidence had not changed.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg is also expected to vote against any reduction.
We are expecting considerable support and believe the government could be defeated
Ian Lucas
Pro-Life campaign
Government figures show that 193,737 women in England and Wales had an abortion in 2006.
Previous attempts to force a vote on lowering the abortion limit have been defeated, but as there is a free vote on the issue, an unknown number of MPs may choose to stay away, or abstain.
That increases the chances of those campaigning to lower the limit to 20 or 22 weeks, who claim to have the backing of 200 MPs.
Need for father
Ian Lucas, the campaign manager of the Pro-Life Group, said: "We are expecting considerable support and believe the government could be defeated."
Before the abortion limit vote, MPs will debate and vote on the role of fathers in IVF.
Existing legislation requires IVF clinics to consider the "welfare" of any child created, which currently means considering the need for a father.
HAVE YOUR SAY This is about a woman having the right to choose what happens to her body Leana, Shropshire
However, the new bill says this should no longer be the case, saying instead there needs to be evidence of "supportive parenting".
On Monday night a cross-party attempt to ban hybrid animal embryos was defeated.
Roman Catholic cabinet ministers Ruth Kelly, Des Browne and Paul Murphy voted for a ban, while Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Tory leader David Cameron both opposed it.
And a bid to ban "saviour siblings" was voted down by 342 votes to 163.
The votes followed two impassioned debates in the committee stage of the bill, aimed at updating laws from 1990 in line with scientific advances.
Story from BBC NEWS
Abortion Limit in Balance as Divide Deepens
This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday May 18 2008
By Robin McKie and Denis Campbell
A group of MPs is seeking to cut the current abortion time limit of 24 weeks.
Kate Guthrie lacks no experience in dealing with abortion. For two days a week, the consultant gynaecologist talks to pregnant women. Many are frightened by their condition and each highly-charged appointment takes a considerable amount of her time.
On two other days, Guthrie performs abortions on those women who elect to end their pregnancies. Those who are less than nine weeks' pregnant are given the abortion pill, while those between nine and 14 weeks attend Hull Royal Infirmary - where Guthrie is based - as day patients for a termination. Those beyond 14 weeks are referred to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which performs later terminations on women up to 24 weeks pregnant. In 2006, a total of 911 women in Hull had abortions in one of these three ways.
'Women of all ages and social classes end up needing an abortion,' Guthrie says. 'In Hull, girls of 14 and women of 47 have had them. An abortion is the net result of something that's gone wrong. That could be a woman's contraception failing or because they've had unprotected sex, sometimes as a result of risky behaviour after alcohol or drugs have reduced their inhibitions, or because they've been coerced into sex by a man. Men have a part to play in this as well. Women say "Will you wear a condom?", and some men say no and cajole the woman into having unprotected sex.'
Such stories are repeated across Britain every year. In England and Wales in 2006 a total of 193,700 abortions were carried out, against 186,400 in 2005. Some politicians and religious groups believe this is unacceptable and say it is time to put a stop to such increases.
As a result, parliament will this week debate a series of amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which are aimed at reducing the number of abortions carried out in Britain. This would be done by cutting the current abortion time limit from 24 weeks to 22, 20, 18, 16 or 12, according to each amendment. Most analysts expect the 22-week option has the best chance of success. By making it more difficult to have late abortions, figures will drop, they argue.
'We have reached the point where we need to pull back on abortion,' says Conservative MP Nadine Dorries. 'If we don't, we will overtake America in a couple of years, making us the abortion capital of the world.'
The argument is also based on the viability of foetuses around the 24-week period. Science has made great strides in improving the age at which premature babies can be kept alive, from 28 to 24 weeks over the past 20 years. These advances are used by campaigners to argue that abortion times should be cut. Society should not terminate foetuses at ages when they can be kept alive outside the womb. And as medicine progresses, and foetuses are kept alive at lower ages, abortion limits should be dropped even further, it is argued.
It is not a view shared by the scientific community, however. Research shows that 24-week viability limit has not changed in recent years. While 67 per cent of babies born at 25 weeks survive to go home from neo-natal unites, only 26 per cent survive if born at 23 weeks. Scientists have reached a limit below which they cannot keep a baby alive and ensure it has an unimpaired life. Nor is this limit likely to improve.
In addition, doctors are horrified by the prospect that the HFE bill is to be used as the means to reduce abortion time limits in Britain. 'People think abortions are what little girls or feckless women have, and that's just not true,' says Guthrie. 'For some women their circumstances are such that the only solution for them, after heart-searching, is to turn to abortion. To patronise women this way is treating them as if they are not capable of self-determination and decision-making, which is not credible in Western society today.'
Doctors point out that many women only discover their unborn baby suffers from a serious congenital condition when they go for their second ultrasound scan at 20 weeks. At present they still have four weeks before reaching the abortion time limit and have time to talk to experts and their partners before making a decision about termination. Cut the limit, as some MPs wish, and that option will disappear.
It is a point demonstrated by freelance journalist Karen Dugdale, who discovered in 1999 - when she was 20 weeks pregnant - that her baby had spina bifida. 'I was told that, at best, our child would have a range of handicaps that would restrict mobility and cause ongoing bladder and bowel problems, and at worst the outcome would be paralysis and permanent brain damage. In this instance, the chances of survival beyond early childhood would be slim and quality of life seriously impaired.'
Karen elected to have an abortion, a decision that caused her heartache but which she still feels was correct. 'No woman would ever want a late abortion,' she says. 'But it is our choice and it would be fundamentally wrong of parliament to take away that right for a few, often very desperate, cases each year. It would show society was regressing.'
Her views are backed by statistics. In 2006, 89 per cent of abortions were carried out on women who were less than 13 weeks pregnant. By contrast, only 1.45 per cent were carried out on women more than 20 weeks pregnant. Yet it is the latter group who will be affected by the proposed time limit changes, not the former. So the prospects of cutting abortion numbers will be very limited.
More to the point, women in the late stages of pregnancy are the most vulnerable of all those who might want an abortion. Apart from the women whose scans reveal abnormalities missed by previous investigations, they include many other heartbreaking examples, as revealed by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service: the teenager who reacted to pregnancy by going into denial; the woman who discovered, late in pregnancy, that her partner was abusing her other daughters; the drug addict on methadone, which stops periods so prevented her from realising that she was pregnant; and the woman who continued to have period-like bleeds throughout her pregnancy.
In each case, termination was available. But will they be allowed it after this week's vote? Will MPs change the limit? Most observers expect it to hold, though some say there is a real risk that it could be reduced to 22 weeks. That alteration might seem relatively unimportant, but it would still cause havoc and misery, says the BPAS. 'Changes in current legislation would cause anguish for a lot of vulnerable women,' said a spokesman.
This view is supported by Jennie, who runs her own business and became pregnant not long after the break-up of her first marriage. 'I thought I couldn't have children,' she recalls. 'I had also been on the pill for a long time and my periods were disrupted. I had no way of knowing that my period was late.'
Jennie (not her real name) then had a brief relationship. 'It broke up in October, but I only realised I was pregnant in late January. It was the worst possible nightmare.' By the time she could have an abortion, she was more than 20 weeks pregnant. She was selling her house and would not have been able to hold down a job if she had had the child. She chose an abortion. 'It was not an easy decision, but I don't regret it. A lot of very remarkable people, including David Steel [now Lord Steel, architect of the 1967 Abortion Act], made it possible for me to have that abortion. Now these MPs want to take that right away from other women in my position. That would be utterly appalling.'
For their part, anti-abortion campaigners insist there must be a slowing down of abortion rates. 'I think the staggering number of abortions in Britain is something that must be looked at,' says Tory MP Iain Duncan Smith. There is a deep malaise in society, he argues, a casual disregard for the sanctity of life and the importance of family life. 'I think the real debate now is whether you curtail time limits on abortion.'
In a speech last year the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said: 'The pregnant woman who smokes or drinks heavily is widely regarded as guilty of infringing the rights of her unborn child. Yet at the same time, with no apparent sense of incongruity, there is discussion of the possibility of the liberty of the pregnant woman herself to perform the actions that will terminate a pregnancy.'
But the idea that women choose abortion as an easy option is dismissed by pregnancy advisers. 'Some women say they are looking forward to a sense of relief and to being able to move on after an abortion, but others worry that they'll feel guilt, resentment, anger or regret,' says Julia Tuckey, a counsellor with the 24/7 free telephone advice line run by Marie Stopes International. 'For some women it can feel like grief or a bereavement. It's a very difficult decision that's fraught with emotion.'
In a typical five-hour shift Tuckey talks to up to eight women. At least one is usually under 16, while her caseload often includes a woman whose pregnancy has revealed her partner to be unsupportive or, worse, violent. She also counsels women who either already have children and were not planning any more, or have to consider a wider range of factors and people than a single or childless woman. Abortion dilemmas are rarely straightforward.
Sometimes a partner is supportive; sometimes not. Some parents give their daughter their backing, others throw them out. 'Last week I had two girls, both under 16, both of whose parents decided to support them whatever they chose to do. One had an abortion and one's having the baby,' said Tuckey.
The danger of changing the law, says legal expert Professor Emily Jackson, of the London School of Economics, is that women denied abortions in their own country would simply go overseas to get them. 'That would only be an option for the well-off, of course,' she added. 'For women who couldn't afford that, those who are on drugs, for example, that would not be possible. Then we would have to face the prospect that these women would try to do something themselves to halt their pregnancies.'
It is a point backed by Jennie: 'There would be a real danger we would return to the days of back-street abortionists and women bleeding terribly, alone and frightened, in a flat somewhere. I'd hate us to return to those days.'
By Robin McKie and Denis Campbell
A group of MPs is seeking to cut the current abortion time limit of 24 weeks.
Kate Guthrie lacks no experience in dealing with abortion. For two days a week, the consultant gynaecologist talks to pregnant women. Many are frightened by their condition and each highly-charged appointment takes a considerable amount of her time.
On two other days, Guthrie performs abortions on those women who elect to end their pregnancies. Those who are less than nine weeks' pregnant are given the abortion pill, while those between nine and 14 weeks attend Hull Royal Infirmary - where Guthrie is based - as day patients for a termination. Those beyond 14 weeks are referred to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which performs later terminations on women up to 24 weeks pregnant. In 2006, a total of 911 women in Hull had abortions in one of these three ways.
'Women of all ages and social classes end up needing an abortion,' Guthrie says. 'In Hull, girls of 14 and women of 47 have had them. An abortion is the net result of something that's gone wrong. That could be a woman's contraception failing or because they've had unprotected sex, sometimes as a result of risky behaviour after alcohol or drugs have reduced their inhibitions, or because they've been coerced into sex by a man. Men have a part to play in this as well. Women say "Will you wear a condom?", and some men say no and cajole the woman into having unprotected sex.'
Such stories are repeated across Britain every year. In England and Wales in 2006 a total of 193,700 abortions were carried out, against 186,400 in 2005. Some politicians and religious groups believe this is unacceptable and say it is time to put a stop to such increases.
As a result, parliament will this week debate a series of amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which are aimed at reducing the number of abortions carried out in Britain. This would be done by cutting the current abortion time limit from 24 weeks to 22, 20, 18, 16 or 12, according to each amendment. Most analysts expect the 22-week option has the best chance of success. By making it more difficult to have late abortions, figures will drop, they argue.
'We have reached the point where we need to pull back on abortion,' says Conservative MP Nadine Dorries. 'If we don't, we will overtake America in a couple of years, making us the abortion capital of the world.'
The argument is also based on the viability of foetuses around the 24-week period. Science has made great strides in improving the age at which premature babies can be kept alive, from 28 to 24 weeks over the past 20 years. These advances are used by campaigners to argue that abortion times should be cut. Society should not terminate foetuses at ages when they can be kept alive outside the womb. And as medicine progresses, and foetuses are kept alive at lower ages, abortion limits should be dropped even further, it is argued.
It is not a view shared by the scientific community, however. Research shows that 24-week viability limit has not changed in recent years. While 67 per cent of babies born at 25 weeks survive to go home from neo-natal unites, only 26 per cent survive if born at 23 weeks. Scientists have reached a limit below which they cannot keep a baby alive and ensure it has an unimpaired life. Nor is this limit likely to improve.
In addition, doctors are horrified by the prospect that the HFE bill is to be used as the means to reduce abortion time limits in Britain. 'People think abortions are what little girls or feckless women have, and that's just not true,' says Guthrie. 'For some women their circumstances are such that the only solution for them, after heart-searching, is to turn to abortion. To patronise women this way is treating them as if they are not capable of self-determination and decision-making, which is not credible in Western society today.'
Doctors point out that many women only discover their unborn baby suffers from a serious congenital condition when they go for their second ultrasound scan at 20 weeks. At present they still have four weeks before reaching the abortion time limit and have time to talk to experts and their partners before making a decision about termination. Cut the limit, as some MPs wish, and that option will disappear.
It is a point demonstrated by freelance journalist Karen Dugdale, who discovered in 1999 - when she was 20 weeks pregnant - that her baby had spina bifida. 'I was told that, at best, our child would have a range of handicaps that would restrict mobility and cause ongoing bladder and bowel problems, and at worst the outcome would be paralysis and permanent brain damage. In this instance, the chances of survival beyond early childhood would be slim and quality of life seriously impaired.'
Karen elected to have an abortion, a decision that caused her heartache but which she still feels was correct. 'No woman would ever want a late abortion,' she says. 'But it is our choice and it would be fundamentally wrong of parliament to take away that right for a few, often very desperate, cases each year. It would show society was regressing.'
Her views are backed by statistics. In 2006, 89 per cent of abortions were carried out on women who were less than 13 weeks pregnant. By contrast, only 1.45 per cent were carried out on women more than 20 weeks pregnant. Yet it is the latter group who will be affected by the proposed time limit changes, not the former. So the prospects of cutting abortion numbers will be very limited.
More to the point, women in the late stages of pregnancy are the most vulnerable of all those who might want an abortion. Apart from the women whose scans reveal abnormalities missed by previous investigations, they include many other heartbreaking examples, as revealed by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service: the teenager who reacted to pregnancy by going into denial; the woman who discovered, late in pregnancy, that her partner was abusing her other daughters; the drug addict on methadone, which stops periods so prevented her from realising that she was pregnant; and the woman who continued to have period-like bleeds throughout her pregnancy.
In each case, termination was available. But will they be allowed it after this week's vote? Will MPs change the limit? Most observers expect it to hold, though some say there is a real risk that it could be reduced to 22 weeks. That alteration might seem relatively unimportant, but it would still cause havoc and misery, says the BPAS. 'Changes in current legislation would cause anguish for a lot of vulnerable women,' said a spokesman.
This view is supported by Jennie, who runs her own business and became pregnant not long after the break-up of her first marriage. 'I thought I couldn't have children,' she recalls. 'I had also been on the pill for a long time and my periods were disrupted. I had no way of knowing that my period was late.'
Jennie (not her real name) then had a brief relationship. 'It broke up in October, but I only realised I was pregnant in late January. It was the worst possible nightmare.' By the time she could have an abortion, she was more than 20 weeks pregnant. She was selling her house and would not have been able to hold down a job if she had had the child. She chose an abortion. 'It was not an easy decision, but I don't regret it. A lot of very remarkable people, including David Steel [now Lord Steel, architect of the 1967 Abortion Act], made it possible for me to have that abortion. Now these MPs want to take that right away from other women in my position. That would be utterly appalling.'
For their part, anti-abortion campaigners insist there must be a slowing down of abortion rates. 'I think the staggering number of abortions in Britain is something that must be looked at,' says Tory MP Iain Duncan Smith. There is a deep malaise in society, he argues, a casual disregard for the sanctity of life and the importance of family life. 'I think the real debate now is whether you curtail time limits on abortion.'
In a speech last year the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said: 'The pregnant woman who smokes or drinks heavily is widely regarded as guilty of infringing the rights of her unborn child. Yet at the same time, with no apparent sense of incongruity, there is discussion of the possibility of the liberty of the pregnant woman herself to perform the actions that will terminate a pregnancy.'
But the idea that women choose abortion as an easy option is dismissed by pregnancy advisers. 'Some women say they are looking forward to a sense of relief and to being able to move on after an abortion, but others worry that they'll feel guilt, resentment, anger or regret,' says Julia Tuckey, a counsellor with the 24/7 free telephone advice line run by Marie Stopes International. 'For some women it can feel like grief or a bereavement. It's a very difficult decision that's fraught with emotion.'
In a typical five-hour shift Tuckey talks to up to eight women. At least one is usually under 16, while her caseload often includes a woman whose pregnancy has revealed her partner to be unsupportive or, worse, violent. She also counsels women who either already have children and were not planning any more, or have to consider a wider range of factors and people than a single or childless woman. Abortion dilemmas are rarely straightforward.
Sometimes a partner is supportive; sometimes not. Some parents give their daughter their backing, others throw them out. 'Last week I had two girls, both under 16, both of whose parents decided to support them whatever they chose to do. One had an abortion and one's having the baby,' said Tuckey.
The danger of changing the law, says legal expert Professor Emily Jackson, of the London School of Economics, is that women denied abortions in their own country would simply go overseas to get them. 'That would only be an option for the well-off, of course,' she added. 'For women who couldn't afford that, those who are on drugs, for example, that would not be possible. Then we would have to face the prospect that these women would try to do something themselves to halt their pregnancies.'
It is a point backed by Jennie: 'There would be a real danger we would return to the days of back-street abortionists and women bleeding terribly, alone and frightened, in a flat somewhere. I'd hate us to return to those days.'
Abortion Rights Protest- Don't Turn The Clock Back On Women's Rights
Tuesday 20th May 2008
Protest: from 5.30pm, Old Palace Yard, opposite St Stephen s Entrance
Supporters of women s abortion rights will be saying don t turn the clock back on women s rights outside parliament as MPs vote on time limit
On Tuesday, MPs will debate and vote on anti-abortion amendments to the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill. Ahead of the crucial debate starting at 7pm, supporters of women s abortion rights will be protesting outside Parliament from 5.30pm to show the broad opposition to any reduction in the abortion time limit. On 12 May, a Guardian survey showed a majority of MPs support the current 24 weeks limit. For a briefing on the anti-abortion amendments tabled please visit www.abortionrights.org.uk
PHOTO OPPORTUNITY: Defend 24 weeks: don t turn the clock back on women s rights There will be a photo opportunity at 5.30pm with MPs, trade unionists, student leaders, and representatives from the medical profession surrounding a banner defend 24 weeks and holding a large artworked clock, to make the point don t turn back the clock on women s rights .
INTERVIEWS: Individual interviews with spokespeople for the campaign, those attending the photo opportunity, and women who have needed later abortion are available by request in advance via the organisers.
Contact: Louise Hutchins, Abortion Rights Coordinator 07904 709 160
Ahead of the vote, key supporters of the current abortion rights said:
Jo Brand, the comedian said:
"This time limit argument is a total red herring. It s the same old anti-abortionists with their anti-women agenda, making up the science as they go along. MPs should have no truck with it."
Christine McCafferty, Labour MP said:
"There has been no significant improvement in the survival of babies born before 24 weeks gestation over the last 12 years, despite medical advances. If the current limit were reduced, it would have an adverse impact on the very small number of women or girls, who do seek late abortions."
Dr Evan Harris, Liberal Democrat MP said:
There has been a campaign of misinformation, assertion and irrelevant information about the abortion time limit led by very well funded organisations opposed to all abortion. Sadly, the evidence shows that it simply isn t the case that wanted babies born below 24 weeks are more likely to survive. It is a cruel deception on parents with pre-term babies. It would be astonishing if Parliament took a view against the united approach of all the relevant medical institutions.
Robert Key, Conservative MP said:
I am a member of the general synod of the Church of England. A recent Church of England briefing to MPs said that any support for campaigns to change the abortion law would be on the proviso that such measures were evidence based. I am yet to be convinced that lowering from 24 weeks would significantly reduce the abortion rate and I believe there are alternative answers. I think the answer is a massive advance in responsible sex education."
Julie Bentley, Chief Executive fpa (Family Planning Association) said:
The few women who need later abortion are the hardest cases very vulnerable women in incredibly difficult circumstances. Some women don t recognise the symptoms of pregnancy, sometimes because of poor sex education they believe the myths, like you can t get pregnant if you re a virgin. People don t make these decisions lightly and women do need the time to make that decision.
Wendy Savage, Doctors for A Woman s Choice on Abortion said:
As one of the few doctors who has performed later abortion in Britain, I know how difficult the cases are. In one case, after 1990, I had a call from A and E about a young 17 year old, 26 weeks pregnant who had been held captive as a domestic worker, raped by her boss and was going to kill herself if her pregnancy wasn t ended. I hope that right, logic and evidence will prevail amongst MPs.
Louise Hutchins, Abortion Rights Campaign Coordinator said:
Nadine Dorries MP s crusade to turn back the clock on women s reproductive rights shows an appalling disregard for women and the difficult circumstances that they sometimes face. Lowering the time limit would be devastating for this small number of women and force some to continue with a pregnancy against their will causing long term psychological and physical harm, others will travel abroad for a later abortion if they can afford to and others, will risk a dangerous illegal back-street option. MPs need to understand that women will be watching very carefully how MPs vote on Tuesday. We are protesting to make sure women s voices are heard loud and clear to defend 24 weeks.
Contact: Louise Hutchins, Abortion Rights Coordinator 07904 709 160
ENDS
Women s testimonies: 19 year old Janet, 21 weeks: I was 19, my father had died and I was looking after my 8 siblings with my mother who could barely afford to keep us. I couldn t face telling my mum about my pregnancy things were so difficult. If I couldn t have an abortion, I would have killed myself. Now I have been able to go to college, learn to read and write, play a full role in society and bring up a family of my own .
17 year old Kate, 21 weeks: I had been taking the pill. When I had a missed period, I went straight to my doctor for a pregnancy test. It came back negative. I was still missing periods. I returned to my doctor who said I had nothing to worry about. A short while later I met someone who had had a child after finding out too late that she was pregnant to have an abortion. I did another test, which came back positive. It took a further two and a half weeks before I could have an abortion. It was the right thing for me I never regretted it.
Claire, Nottingham: With my son, I wanted an abortion and I was refused by my GP several times until it was too late and I could not afford to go private. I was forced to do something I did not want to and it ruined my life. Why ruin the child s life too by having it born to a mother and a father that did not want it?
Notes:
1) Women need later abortion: The time limit for abortion is currently up to 24 weeks (except in exceptional circumstances). Less than 2% of all abortions take place after 20 weeks gestation; these are needed by women in difficult and individual circumstances including women who did not know they were pregnant until later because they did not have the normal signs of pregnancy or thought they couldn t be pregnant women using contraception, young and pre-menopausal; women who have a wanted pregnancy but face catastrophic life events such as domestic violence or loss of a partner; women who have been delayed by the NHS.
2) Medical Opinion opposed to lowering of time limit: In light of recent coverage on the issue of extremely preterm infants survival, specifically below 24 weeks gestation, the shared view of the British Medical Association (BMA), the British Association of Perinatal Medicine (BAPM), the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) is that:
there is no evidence of a significant improvement in the survival of preterm infants below 24 weeks gestation, in the UK, in the last 18 years. The major development since 1990 has been an improvement in the survival of babies born at 24 weeks and over, but not below this gestation .
The view that survival rates below 24 weeks gestation have not significantly improved is shared with the House of Commons former Science and Technology Committee.
3) Broad support for maintaining the current 24-week limit: including by all the major relevant medical bodies - the BMA, the RCN, fpa (Family Planning Association), RCOG, the Royal College of Paediatricians, the British Association of Perinatal Medicine and Antenatal Results and Choices the main charity supporting women facing the prospect of later terminations, the TUC, National Union of Students and Fawcett Society.
4) Abortion Rights, the national pro-choice campaign, is campaigning to defend women s current abortion rights involving thousands of supporters across Britain, MPs, medical professionals, trade union, student and women s groups. Abortion Rights believes the abortion law should be strengthened, not weakened. For details please visit www.abortionrights.org.uk.
Protest: from 5.30pm, Old Palace Yard, opposite St Stephen s Entrance
Supporters of women s abortion rights will be saying don t turn the clock back on women s rights outside parliament as MPs vote on time limit
On Tuesday, MPs will debate and vote on anti-abortion amendments to the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill. Ahead of the crucial debate starting at 7pm, supporters of women s abortion rights will be protesting outside Parliament from 5.30pm to show the broad opposition to any reduction in the abortion time limit. On 12 May, a Guardian survey showed a majority of MPs support the current 24 weeks limit. For a briefing on the anti-abortion amendments tabled please visit www.abortionrights.org.uk
PHOTO OPPORTUNITY: Defend 24 weeks: don t turn the clock back on women s rights There will be a photo opportunity at 5.30pm with MPs, trade unionists, student leaders, and representatives from the medical profession surrounding a banner defend 24 weeks and holding a large artworked clock, to make the point don t turn back the clock on women s rights .
INTERVIEWS: Individual interviews with spokespeople for the campaign, those attending the photo opportunity, and women who have needed later abortion are available by request in advance via the organisers.
Contact: Louise Hutchins, Abortion Rights Coordinator 07904 709 160
Ahead of the vote, key supporters of the current abortion rights said:
Jo Brand, the comedian said:
"This time limit argument is a total red herring. It s the same old anti-abortionists with their anti-women agenda, making up the science as they go along. MPs should have no truck with it."
Christine McCafferty, Labour MP said:
"There has been no significant improvement in the survival of babies born before 24 weeks gestation over the last 12 years, despite medical advances. If the current limit were reduced, it would have an adverse impact on the very small number of women or girls, who do seek late abortions."
Dr Evan Harris, Liberal Democrat MP said:
There has been a campaign of misinformation, assertion and irrelevant information about the abortion time limit led by very well funded organisations opposed to all abortion. Sadly, the evidence shows that it simply isn t the case that wanted babies born below 24 weeks are more likely to survive. It is a cruel deception on parents with pre-term babies. It would be astonishing if Parliament took a view against the united approach of all the relevant medical institutions.
Robert Key, Conservative MP said:
I am a member of the general synod of the Church of England. A recent Church of England briefing to MPs said that any support for campaigns to change the abortion law would be on the proviso that such measures were evidence based. I am yet to be convinced that lowering from 24 weeks would significantly reduce the abortion rate and I believe there are alternative answers. I think the answer is a massive advance in responsible sex education."
Julie Bentley, Chief Executive fpa (Family Planning Association) said:
The few women who need later abortion are the hardest cases very vulnerable women in incredibly difficult circumstances. Some women don t recognise the symptoms of pregnancy, sometimes because of poor sex education they believe the myths, like you can t get pregnant if you re a virgin. People don t make these decisions lightly and women do need the time to make that decision.
Wendy Savage, Doctors for A Woman s Choice on Abortion said:
As one of the few doctors who has performed later abortion in Britain, I know how difficult the cases are. In one case, after 1990, I had a call from A and E about a young 17 year old, 26 weeks pregnant who had been held captive as a domestic worker, raped by her boss and was going to kill herself if her pregnancy wasn t ended. I hope that right, logic and evidence will prevail amongst MPs.
Louise Hutchins, Abortion Rights Campaign Coordinator said:
Nadine Dorries MP s crusade to turn back the clock on women s reproductive rights shows an appalling disregard for women and the difficult circumstances that they sometimes face. Lowering the time limit would be devastating for this small number of women and force some to continue with a pregnancy against their will causing long term psychological and physical harm, others will travel abroad for a later abortion if they can afford to and others, will risk a dangerous illegal back-street option. MPs need to understand that women will be watching very carefully how MPs vote on Tuesday. We are protesting to make sure women s voices are heard loud and clear to defend 24 weeks.
Contact: Louise Hutchins, Abortion Rights Coordinator 07904 709 160
ENDS
Women s testimonies: 19 year old Janet, 21 weeks: I was 19, my father had died and I was looking after my 8 siblings with my mother who could barely afford to keep us. I couldn t face telling my mum about my pregnancy things were so difficult. If I couldn t have an abortion, I would have killed myself. Now I have been able to go to college, learn to read and write, play a full role in society and bring up a family of my own .
17 year old Kate, 21 weeks: I had been taking the pill. When I had a missed period, I went straight to my doctor for a pregnancy test. It came back negative. I was still missing periods. I returned to my doctor who said I had nothing to worry about. A short while later I met someone who had had a child after finding out too late that she was pregnant to have an abortion. I did another test, which came back positive. It took a further two and a half weeks before I could have an abortion. It was the right thing for me I never regretted it.
Claire, Nottingham: With my son, I wanted an abortion and I was refused by my GP several times until it was too late and I could not afford to go private. I was forced to do something I did not want to and it ruined my life. Why ruin the child s life too by having it born to a mother and a father that did not want it?
Notes:
1) Women need later abortion: The time limit for abortion is currently up to 24 weeks (except in exceptional circumstances). Less than 2% of all abortions take place after 20 weeks gestation; these are needed by women in difficult and individual circumstances including women who did not know they were pregnant until later because they did not have the normal signs of pregnancy or thought they couldn t be pregnant women using contraception, young and pre-menopausal; women who have a wanted pregnancy but face catastrophic life events such as domestic violence or loss of a partner; women who have been delayed by the NHS.
2) Medical Opinion opposed to lowering of time limit: In light of recent coverage on the issue of extremely preterm infants survival, specifically below 24 weeks gestation, the shared view of the British Medical Association (BMA), the British Association of Perinatal Medicine (BAPM), the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) is that:
there is no evidence of a significant improvement in the survival of preterm infants below 24 weeks gestation, in the UK, in the last 18 years. The major development since 1990 has been an improvement in the survival of babies born at 24 weeks and over, but not below this gestation .
The view that survival rates below 24 weeks gestation have not significantly improved is shared with the House of Commons former Science and Technology Committee.
3) Broad support for maintaining the current 24-week limit: including by all the major relevant medical bodies - the BMA, the RCN, fpa (Family Planning Association), RCOG, the Royal College of Paediatricians, the British Association of Perinatal Medicine and Antenatal Results and Choices the main charity supporting women facing the prospect of later terminations, the TUC, National Union of Students and Fawcett Society.
4) Abortion Rights, the national pro-choice campaign, is campaigning to defend women s current abortion rights involving thousands of supporters across Britain, MPs, medical professionals, trade union, student and women s groups. Abortion Rights believes the abortion law should be strengthened, not weakened. For details please visit www.abortionrights.org.uk.
Kenny Calls For Clarification By Catholic Church
The Irish Times Tuesday May 20th 2008
· Kenny calls for clarification by Catholic Church
STEPHEN ERRITY in Athlone
ABORTION: FINE GAEL leader Enda Kenny has called on the Catholic Church to clarify claims from some Catholic groups that implementation of the Lisbon Treaty would pave the way for the legalisation of abortion in Ireland.
Mr Kenny was speaking in Athlone yesterday at the launching of his party's Ireland West campaign for a Yes vote in the referendum on the treaty.
Referring to material appearing in the Catholic newspaper Alive, he said: "As a Catholic and a father of three young children, I have been offended by these articles, and many elderly people have communicated their concern and confusion about this matter to me.
"Our Constitution is quite explicit in its protection of the unborn. I do think clarification is necessary from the Catholic hierarchy that these articles do not represent the official church position."
Mr Kenny told reporters that he had been "heartened" by recent opinion poll findings which showed an increase in support for the treaty and he welcomed the launching of the Governments own campaign.
He said "complacency and confusion" were the main challenges facing the Yes campaign.
The case for the treaty came down to two fundamental issues: firstly, the series of challenges facing Europe in the coming years in the areas of climate change, poverty, terrorism and the economy; and secondly the opportunities available to Ireland in the future.
· Kenny calls for clarification by Catholic Church
STEPHEN ERRITY in Athlone
ABORTION: FINE GAEL leader Enda Kenny has called on the Catholic Church to clarify claims from some Catholic groups that implementation of the Lisbon Treaty would pave the way for the legalisation of abortion in Ireland.
Mr Kenny was speaking in Athlone yesterday at the launching of his party's Ireland West campaign for a Yes vote in the referendum on the treaty.
Referring to material appearing in the Catholic newspaper Alive, he said: "As a Catholic and a father of three young children, I have been offended by these articles, and many elderly people have communicated their concern and confusion about this matter to me.
"Our Constitution is quite explicit in its protection of the unborn. I do think clarification is necessary from the Catholic hierarchy that these articles do not represent the official church position."
Mr Kenny told reporters that he had been "heartened" by recent opinion poll findings which showed an increase in support for the treaty and he welcomed the launching of the Governments own campaign.
He said "complacency and confusion" were the main challenges facing the Yes campaign.
The case for the treaty came down to two fundamental issues: firstly, the series of challenges facing Europe in the coming years in the areas of climate change, poverty, terrorism and the economy; and secondly the opportunities available to Ireland in the future.
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