Lowering of limit for abortion (sens, obviously)

If I have read it all right it is 20 weeks in Austrailia (I could have read it wrong - im sure someone will say). They are basing a lot of information based on Austrilian studies.

Personally I have mixed feelings but I have clouded judgement due to being upduffed and knowing someone who lost a baby at 23 weeks and the hospital wouldn't (because of the law) do anything.

That's a different law though. As I understand it, doctors aren't obliged to try and resucitate a foetus born before 24 weeks if they don't feel it's viable.And only in a tiny, tiny minority of cases are they viable.

As I see it, those in favour of the change are effectively saying that eventually medical science will advance to a point where a foetus is viable from conception, removing wwomen's rights ot termination entirely and making us glorified incubators.

I agree with the lowering to 20 weeks. My son was born at 25 weeks and even though he was 15 weeks early, he was a proper baby. He looked like any other baby, just smaller. So i can't understand how they can allow people to have abortions up until 24 weeks of pregnancy. If there is a medical reason then i think that's a different matter.

Insofar as I have read, most terminations are performed by 14 weeks anyway. In the event there are life threatening issues for mother/severe foetal abnormalities not detected earlier in the pregnancy which may mean that a woman may wish to revise her decision to proceed with the pregnancy, for that reason, I would support the limit being as it is.

Tbh I'm not sure where I stand on this. I believe that a woman should have the right to make the choice for as long as possible especially due to things like changing circumstances in their lives which may mean they require a late abortion. I would worry though that some people aren't very well informed and see having a late abortion as a bit of a luxury (terrible word for it) that means they don't have to make a decision for longer and don't consider that it isn't ideal.

Isn't there a law that means something like over 20 weeks an abortion can only be done for certain reasons or something?

From what I've read, the women having abortions that late are the most vulnerable. They're often very young girls who haven't known they're pregnant or have been in denial about it; or they're drug users or on methadone (which stops your periods) or they've got mental health issues or learning difficulties and haven't realised they were pregnant or have delayed making a decision about it. To my mind there is absolutely nothing to be gained from forcing a woman in any of those situations to continue with a pregnancy.

And even in a situation where the abortioin was being carried out for purely "social" reasons - say relationship breakdown - who is benefitting from the woman's being forced to continue with the pregnancy? Even long-term, I'm not convinced anyone benefits.

I understand where you are coming from on this but I do feel that 24 weeks is too far. At 24 weeks pregnant, by baby/foetus had distinct movement patterns, waking at same time at night & reacting if I let the sunlight get to my belly. I am pro-abortion, however, I personaaly feel highly uncomfortable at the thought of ending the life of a creature that can respond to stimulus & am concerned about the levels of pain experienced by the foetus. Also, the psycological impact ont eh mother at late term abortion also concerns me. The abortion process at 'late term' is pretty horrific and I feel that on ethical grounds, it is too late.

Having said that, there are occasions when late abortion is necessary. Such as when terrible disabilities are discovered at 20 week scan (Not wishing to get into a debate on the right to life with a disability which is a seperate issue). Reducing the limit to 20 weeks will cause problems in that area, possibly encouraging late term 'illegal' abortions that increase risk to mother & foetus.

It is a complex issue and I think that maybe stonger controls should be in place for late term abortions is perhaps more preferable to an out-right reduction in the age limit. I don't think that women will ever be reduced to 'glorified incubators' but there is a real risk that freedom of choice is being eroded.

Alternatively they are women with a foetus with an abnormality that only became apparent after the 20 week scan, I think it would be outrageous to force a woman to continue with a pregnancy when she felt she would be incapable of caring for a disabled child.

For me its a vey difficult position.

There are a number of conditions that can only be detected at the "20 week" scan. I put 20 weeks in inverted commas because we had ours at 22 weeks. If there had been something amiss with our pregnancy we would have had NO time under the proposed law to do anything. Our hands would have been tied as to whether to continue with the pregnancy.

I whole heartedly support leaving the limit of abortion as per the current law

I think for social reasons it should be lowered to 20 weeks but there will always be cases where mums have had a 20 week scan at around 20-22 weeks and they discover something wrong with the baby that would necessitate an abortion.

I agree Sophie that the ability to keep a premature baby alive through technology should not be a factor in influencing the time limit for abortion. Likewise, the debate about doctors endeavouring to save the life of a premature baby born at 23 weeks, whilst leaving an aborted 23 week old foetus to die is somewhat specious, but it has an emotionally persuasive quality.

I struggle with this- I cannot think of a single other issue on the legislative agenda that gives me more trouble. Despite being pro-choice, instinctively I find myself agreeing with the proposal to reduce the time limit, and tbh I can't put my finger on precisely why that is.

I thought there was no limit where there were very severe problems with the foetus? I thought the limit was for abortions where there is no "problem" as such?

Sherry, I thought it was 14 weeks in Australia. It might have changed since I was there though.

It's dreadful. Really dreadful. The number of abortions that take place over 20 weeks is minimal, but most importantly those that DO have terminations tend to be the ones who really need it - vulnerable youngsters who've concealed pregnancies, drug addicts, the mentall ill, the homeless. I'm so saddened by this.

i thought circumstances like that were covered - they can still perform abortions at over 24 weeks now cant they? when the circumstances are extreme

i do think though that if they do make this change that scans should be performed earlier - i think many people have to wait till 22 or 23 weeks for their scan while most of the problems can actually be detected earlier

to the OP - i think it is ridiculous - there will continue to be medical advances so potentially the age could go down and down -

seems like fiddling for fiddling's sake

Are they changing it to take out the abortion under medical grounds at any point? Just now you can terminate up to term for abnormalities.

I thought that terminations on medical grounds could be carried out pretty much up to birth and that the law is concerned with 'social' terminations? In which case if something was revealed at the 20+ week scan there really wouldn't be a strict window to decide on termination?

I think things should be left as they are tbh - I can't imagine a late termination for 'socal' reasons being gone into lightly.... and i would think that the medics would encourage the mother to think round all the implications etc before it was carried out.

I am pretty sure that terminations after 12/14 weeks are very much in the minority.... the way the anti's talk it sounds like hordes of women are battering down the clinics doors after they get to half way just cos they have changed their minds which i really think isn't the case

This is exactly the impression I had. And all those are "social" reasons - the baby is fine (although of course in the case of a drug user there might well be terrible probelms that would only become apparent after birth), but the mother is unable to continue with the pregnancy or care for the baby once it's born. And I don't think adoption is a good enough option to offer those women either.

Having recently miscarried at 16 weeks, I can't imagine the sort of mess you would have to be in to even contemplate an abortion at 24 weeks, but clearly there are instances where this is sadly the case.

I would still defend a woman's right to have an abortion at 24 weeks.

But for substantial risk to the mother's life or fetal abnormality there is no limit to when abortion may be carried out and I don't think any proposed legislation would change this.

I would very much like to know how many people have abortions past 20 weeks' gestation or so without fitting that criteria anyway - I don't think there is any point in changing the law as I suspect it's a very small proportion.

So, developmentally at about the same level as a plant ?

Not sure that's the best measure of sentience. ?

Strikes me that a bunch of old blokes who are never going to have to deal with the physical consequences of an unwanted pregnancy aren't the best ones to be making the decision about what women can do with their bodies.

For personal reasons I feel it has to be lowered, my feelings are based on giving birth 5 times at around 23 weeks(and 1 son surviving) I really can't understand how desperate you would have to be to choose to go through that. We can find out were pregnant before we miss periods now, so I can't think of many reasons on why you would wait that long. It must be an awful desision to make and even worse get over.

Exactly.

I've just been to look for some stats and found some on the DOH site which gives counts for the number of abortions by gestatial week. The number done under 12 weeks is 80% of the total. Reducing the time limit from 24 to even 14 weeks isn't going to reduce the number of abortions by all that much.

I still can't work out how to quote... was going to quote Ginntonic and Sophie, both of whom I agree with.

My anomaly scan didn't take place until I was 21 weeks so if the limit had been lowered to 20 weeks I'd have been out of time to terminate if anything had been drastically wrong. Not that I necessarily would have done, you understand, it's just having the option there.

No one terminates a 5 month pregnancy lightly. As has been said, the people who do are often the people who need this option the most because their circumstances make them more vulnerable.

Also, the last thing we want is for women to have to resort to desperate, dangerous, illegal measures because we've driven the issue underground. The issue will still exist if we make it illegal.

I'm sorry to hear of your loss. However, this should bring home to you exactly how vastly different these women's circumstances are from yours - these aren't people who are testing for a longed-for pregnancy before they've even missed a period; they're women whose lives are so chaotic thet they're totally unaware of or unable to cope with the reality of their pregnancy.

Exactly. No matter the rights or wrongs of abortion itself. Reducing the limit to 20 weeks will create far more problems than it solves.

In other (related) news, I was just reading an article about the 80+ girls who last year had their 3rd abortions before leaving their teens. Is the message of contraception really not egtting out there ?

Have yet to get tot he news today, so have no idea about the Tories stance on this. However, I do know that fetuses look like fetuses from much earlier than 20 weeks, from at least 15 weeks at least I'd say. You can't use "but it looks like a baby" as a measure of when you deem it developed enough to warrant banning termination unless you want to drop the cut-off to much lower.

For me, viability is key. And by that I mean the ability to survive relatively independently of the mother, with a good prognosis. I heard Prof Campbell talking on Radio 4 the other day, and was surprised at how weak and emotive his arguments were. There was a lot of chat about how babies at 20 weeks exhibit the same behaviours on scan as more developed fetuses. Well yes they do, and they do that at 16 weeks, and at twelve. How on earth can (apparent) thumb-sucking be thought of as a good deciding factor re termination?

Off to check out the Tories abortion plans.

No because they know how easy it is to get an abortion. Most of them think contraception doesn't matter because they can fix it if they do end up pregnant.

You know what? This is going to sound harsh but I absolutely stand by it. If the message about contraception and its easy, free availability isn't getting through to those women, heaven forbid they should be put into a position where they're responsible for a baby. Let them have as many terminations as they want, imo - I'm delighted we live in a society where people totally unable to care for children have an alternative to bringing them into the world.

The number of TOPs over 20 weeks is about 1% and I'd take a guess that the vast majority of those women are in vulnerable groups.

I've referred and looked after hundreds of women having abortions and I've never seen anyone having a TOP over about 16 weeks. It's really uncommon.

I wonder if those people who are vehemently pro-20weeks are only pro-20weeks because they can't be seen to be anti abortion totally.

I agree. But then I'm in favour of more liberal abortion laws. I don't think women who find themselves pregnancy under 12-14 weeks should have to go begging to a doctor (let alone two) and I don't think doctors should have to sign a document to say that those women are at risk of mental harm more than they would be if the pregnancy were to go ahead.

Sorry but have to take issue with the fact that it is "easy" to get an abortion.