Fom the BBC
Dawn Primarolo is unpersuaded of the need to change the abortion law
Health Minister Dawn Primarolo says the government does not believe there is sufficient scientific evidence to lower the legal abortion limit of 24 weeks.
She said nothing had persuaded the Department of Health that survival rates had improved for extremely premature babies born before that time.
The Pro-Life Alliance wants the upper limit cut to 20 weeks.
But the British Medical Association says the number surviving at 24 weeks is still "extremely small".
Ms Primarolo is giving evidence to the Commons science and technology committee, which is looking at medical advances since the Abortion Act was passed in 1967 - rather than the ethical or moral issues associated with abortion time limits.
Viability
The committee is also questioning Fiona Adshead, deputy chief medical officer for England.
Ms Primarolo told MPs: "The Department of Health's view and the advice to me is that - and that's why there is no proposals from the government to amend the act - that the act works as intended and doesn't require further amendment at the present time."
She said 89% of abortions were carried out before 13 weeks and 68% before 10 weeks. The viability of babies born at 21 weeks was 0%, at 22 weeks 1% and 23 weeks 11%, she said.
"The medical consensus still indicates that whilst improvements have been made in care that at the moment that concept of viability cannot constantly be pushed back," she said.
However, Dr Peter Saunders, general secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said it was not only doctors with religious beliefs who preferred not to carry out abortions.
He said one in five doctors will not refer patients for the procedure.
"A woman with an unwanted pregnancy is in crisis - whether she decides to have an abortion, to keep the baby, have an adoption, whatever - that's going to affect her life forever," he told Today.
Lord Steel, the architect of the 1967 Abortion Act, said too many abortions were taking place and the procedure was now being used as a form of contraception.
He told The Guardian he was not persuaded that the 24-week limit should be cut, but called for better sex education and a debate on sexual morality to bring the numbers down.
Catholic and Church of England leaders have called for a reassessment of abortion's role in society, as the 40th anniversary of the Act is marked.
In an open letter Cardinals Cormac Murphy-O'Connor and Keith O'Brien accepted that abortion will not be abolished, but stressed that it "robbed everyone of their future".
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, warned that abortion was increasingly regarded as normal, rather than as a procedure of last resort.
According to the Department of Health, 193,000 abortions happened in England and Wales last year, of which 89% were performed in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy.
The Pro-Life Alliance says babies born at 24 weeks now have a much better chance of survival than when the Abortion Act was passed.
But the BMA says that, despite "very considerable" scientific advances, the number of babies born at 24 weeks and surviving is still "extremely small". - end BBC quote.
The BMA is dominated by quacks making money out of abortion. They would say that wouldn't they? They murder babies who are viable no matter how few they are.
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6 comments:
I feel very uncomfortable with this whole debate as a woman. I think men who think they know best need to consider the fact that they will never personally themselves conceive and face that agonising issue. They may be in a relationship where it occurs but never have to deal with it as an issue for themselves.
We must protect women who have been sexually abused, raped, and young girls who have been sexually molested. We cannot allow the moral high ground take over from the mental safety of the victim.
For a woman who has had her body violated -she needs psychgologically to know that she is free of any consequence of the violation.
This is 2007. Lets not go back to dark ages and back street abortions.
This is not a female issue but a human one. My point is that doctors, mainly male as it happens, are not aiding life but destroying it. They destroy babies who could be born alive now at 24 weeks, They destroy handicapped unborn children right up to birth. A mother may recover from trauma. An aborted child does not. Expectant mothers should be treated with compassion, not violated by abortionists who make a living by dealing in death.
The abortion issue is drifting far too away from awomen issue -who carries the child? A manora woman?
We have young girls-14 year olds who make mistakes and then agonise about telling their parents - what would lowering the limit do?
I beleiev strongly that women get abused and walked over far too much -and it s about time that women put a stop to this dark age idea that by reducing time limit then some good is doen. I don't agree with late terminations but there are very valid reasons why women go through iwth it.
I don't disrespect the christian or catholic church-both respectable institutions with good people and good foundations but we cannot allow their points of view based on belief they value to dominate a national policy involving health of women as a whole when we now have a multicultural diverse Britain.
fenella
A jewish health poicy analyst woman not backwad in coming forward!!
Who is responsible for the child bveing in the womb? A male. It is, I repeat not a female issue but a humanitarian one.
Some years ago, Rabbi Jacobs, then Orthodox rabbi in Ealing, told me that the reasons that liberals of all faiths get on well togheter is that they disbelieve the same things. Liberal Christians will agree with you my friend. One of them is the father of the Abortion Act. But i do not. Nor I think wpuld the Orthodox.
You admit yourself that you do not agree with late terminations but you defend them. All of us base our ethics on our belief. The present law like your position is based on a secular Enlightenment philosophy which does not have due respect for the unborn. In multi-cultural Britain, the orthodox whether Jewsish, Muslim or Christian, would not share this ethical base. They protect the life of the unborn.
I don't agree with late terminations but sometimes it is unavoidable and I am not so extreme in exceptional cases to say no.
I would really fear back steet/black market abortions being a real risk for one -and the other is changing limit is moving backwards in a forwards society.
Choice should always be availbale to women who need that option.
If we lived in a lovingcaring extended family Britain with all the suppot a mother needs then yes cut abortion limit for most cases BUT I see how teenage mothers develop postnatal psychosis, other disorders , break down and fall apart.The psychiatric system is under resourced as are social services.
- the support on offer to many is inadequate -and whilst many have this illusion that the child should have a right to life-we need to think of the impact this has beyond birth.
We can safely beg to differ.
Mothers may suffer post-natal mental disorders and need support. So do women who have aborted babies and lived to regret it.
As you say, we agree to differ.
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