Lowering of limit for abortion (sens, obviously)

Just reading about DC saying that he supports a cut because survival rates after early births are rising. This contradicts what was reported a couple of weeks ago that survival rates of pre 24 week premies has not changed in the past decade.

Well said.

I'm not sure that the "premature babies can survive from day X" argument to lowering the limit is valid - how many premature babies survive from 23 or 24 weeks' gestation without an enormeous amount of medical care and with a good quality of life? Is it too early to tell whether keeping such premature babies alive really benefits them and their families in the long run?

I do sort of agree with you Sophie. Thre shouldn't be an upper limit on how many terminations you can have, however, I was shocked to see how lightly so many women treated it. Hundreds of women were on their 4th or 5th, while others had had up to nine.

Nine abortions for God's sake ! Maybe a system of 3 strikes and you'll get sterilised would make them think twice ?

Well in my experience it was.

Sophie- My view is personally based from the fact that I can't understand the level of desperation you would have had to reach to make the desision to terminate not really on the rights or wrongs of it really, babies are surviving at 23 weeks and some rarely at 22 weeks(very rare I know).

I was pregnant at 16 and was pretty desperate, my daughter was adopted and we have been back in contact for several years(I am now a granny), the enphasis then was on adoption, I am probably not putting myself accross very well, I just know there are different choices and to choose termination at that late stage must be so, so hard.

Quite. And anyway, what's the alternative? Force these women to have babies? The idea that a baby is a punishment for a woman's behaviour strikes me as utterly medieval.

I've been thinking about this too Zebra- the italicised stats below (for England and Wales) show there's a margin of 1,000 between those at 20 weeks and those which would be able to be performed up until term. I got these from here- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1976695/Thousands-of-women-have-four-abortions.html

Abortion by numbers:

22,000 abortions in England and Wales in 1968, the first year they were legal

193,700 in 2006

Of these 7,123 carried out after 17 weeks

3,000 carried out after 20 weeks, a 44% increase in a decade

2,000 carried out on the grounds that the child would be born handicapped

7,400 carried out on non-UK residents

24% of abortions undertaken by NHS

67% carried out at independent clinics under NHS contracts

9% self-funded

£500 is the average cost of an abortion up to 12 weeks involving no anaesthetic

33% of British women will have an abortion by the age of 45 (excluding Northern Ireland)

Well maybe not sterilised - but are there any ways that people can be encouraged more forcefully to use a method like depo or implanon if they keep having abortions - surely less traumatic and it must be quite a drain on resources in those cases

So they can get pregnant 3, 4, 5 times, maybe more and they can just keep going to get their situation 'seen to' rather than taking resposibility and using contraception?

And in mine it was'nt. Which I guess is what happens when you try to cover such a personal and differing issue with legislation.

Really? In my experience it's like falling off a log. Sure, you need two signatures and need to demonstrate that your health will suffer more from continuing with the pregnancy than terminating it, but I've never heard of anybody within the time limits being refused one.

This is exactly the sort of comment which infurates me when people discuss topics like this.

Ann-Louise, your worldview and experiences do not represent everyone's.

I don't know where you grew up but I'll share my own experiences of being 15 years old and sexual health services:

- Being 15yrs old, living at home on edge of small ex-mining village with GP nowhere near my school (i.e. not easy to access)
- Family Dr. refused to provide an implant until I was 16 a few months later ("not appropriate") and pushing me onto the (entirely-inappropriate, IMHO) pill despite suffering from frequent stomach upsets (it was ME that looked up the implications of this online, the advice I received was shite)
- Family planning clinic open 2pm-4pm at single village GP service 3 days a week for free condoms... eh.. when I'm in school.. and village pharmacy has relative working there.
- School nurse service does not provide free condoms.

I look back and wonder, it's a bloody miracle I DIDN'T end up pregnant like the mostpart of my classmates by the end of my teens, and here is a person like you suggesting that most of these girls have is as simple as thinking "can't be bothered with contraception" and "abortion is easy".

I'm seething at the suggestion here at the blanket statement about these things being "easy".

SA.

Damn quoting takes ages.?

anyhoo I replied above, somewhere, that for me it was not so easy and Im guessing it might be the same for others.

Ann-Louise, I'm sure you know that terminations aren't performed willy-nilly and they're not performed without future contraception being discussed with these women. For whatever reason that message isn't getting through to them. Given that, do you think that messages about having a healthy pregnancy or taking care of a baby are likely to get through? Women in this situation strike me as the worst possible mother material, and as I say, I am unreservedly glad that the option of safe terminations is available to them.

The quoting is annoying me too BoBK. I guess I know somebody now, so I can bin that anecdote. Sorry to hear about your experience.

I don't think that they do, that's why i said in my experience it was, not everyone elses.

Sophie - I'm not saying they should be made to have a baby as i understand that would make the situation even worse.

Right I've had a mosey, and it seems this only applies to 'social' terminations of pregnancy (terrible term, it's rarely social in the most usual sense).

I've seen one patient seeking termination over 20 weeks in the last year, and been involved in the case of one other. The first decided to keep the baby when she found out how are gone she was, and after she'd arranged support from her mother (she was a teen). This lady had had numerous investigations about associated symptoms (blood tests, endoscopy) and none of these had revealed her pregnancy. Her mother confirmed this. The other lady was too far gone by 2 days, and had to continue the pregnancy.

Most of the patients I see wanting what I'd consider to be unusually later terminations (16 weeks+) are young, or mentally unwell, drug users, in abusive relationships or have been ill-advised by doctors and told to ignore their primary amenorrheoa unless they wanted a child, and then to come back because they "they could never get pregnant without help" (I've had three of these is two years, all under 20 years of age). They were all shocked and devastated.

I have gone home and sobbed and sobbed about the babies I've seen, knowing I'll be the only one to ever see them alive. Some days are bloody awful, really very distressing. But if it's that grim for me, how much worse for them? I've seen one cavalier attitude in four years or more, and I think that might have been bravado.

I feel so strongly about this. Like Sophie I think it makes us one step away from incubators. The early gestation statstics don't support a lowering of the limit which makes this an issue of sentiment surely?

I really don't see what lowering the limit will achieve exept to aloienate the most vulnerable in society. Incidentally, I live in a part of the UK where abortion is still illegal and have seen what women have been driven to out of desperation. It is obscene to me that in 2008, in the UK, women from NI have the awful choice to continue with an unwanted pregnancy, have to pay several hundred pounds to travel to another part of the UK for the procedure or must still resort to awful backstreet measures for a termination. I very much doubt, but sincerely hope that the 1967 Act wll be extended to NI at this time.

Incidentally, I speak from the pointof view of having a termination with absolutely no regrets at age 21 and having the recent experience of seeing my twins in utero at 20 weeks (not a scan, in HD via video camera, in colour, in close up) whilst having a procedure that had the potential either to abort or save one or both of them. A 20 week fetus looks like a baby. I absolutely believe JK when she says a 12 week one does as well.

Thank you Lou?.

Humm, I guess this thread will be not only a discussion post but a bit of a test of how easy it is to keep track in a long thread. It's annoying me already.

Then you're saying that they should be forced to use contraception? Have a coil or implant inserted without their consent? I'm not sure I want to live in a society that does that to women either. To my mind that's a much worse outcome than multiple terminations.

If they don't want a baby, then yes they should use contraception. They shouldn't have to be forced to use it.

If you know you don't want a baby, why would you continue to have unprotected sex knowing the likely outcome?

Sophie-Could I ask why you feel that would be worse?

I have my own religous/moral beleifs, but don't feel that they should be imposed on everyone, because obviously everyone doesn't believe the same.

I think you're being incredibly narrow-minded here, and assuming that everyone's ability to make sensible decisions about their fertility is the same as yours. Many women have chaotic lifestyles, through mental illness, drug abuse, homelessness or a host of other factors. It's totally unreasonaable to expect those women to make decisions and manage their lives in the same way you and I do.

Not really sure what I'm trying to say here, but just wanted you to know how brave I think you are to keep going in a job like that. I couldn't.

Isn't this always in some ways,( unless medical breakthoughs come a long way), be a personal veiw. I am still very uncomfortable with the thought that some parties will use this vote to gain party support, not because of the wider issues.

Whatever happens, it's an awful thing to go through at any stage I would imagine. I do wish they were voting for better support for the young and vunerable or something that might make a impact in today's society.

Sophie - I think it's best we agree to disagree as we see things differently. I accept your opinion totally. Mine maybe different but that doesn't make me narrow-minded.

Because I don't feel that the state, or doctors, or parents or anyone else, should be allowed to dictate to a women about her fertility or what happens to her body. If she chooses not to use contraception and have multiple terminations instead, sure that's not a great outcome, but it's better than her being forcibly sterilised, or forced to give birth.

Essentially I am agreeing with you that we shouldn't impose our own religious or moral beliefs on anyone else. To a degree of course that's what a democratic society does, but in the case of women's bodies and fertility I think we err on the side of draconianism.

Oh come on. You've only got to cruise BT to hear of the number of men who don't like condoms and refuse to wear them. I see loads of women for whom taking a responsible contraceptive choice would be a massive step. Girls who won't take the Pill because it will 'make them fat', or 'make them look easy' (ironic I know). Girls who don't even have sex because they enjoy it but to keep a boy happy - hell, to keep a boy full-stop. In many ways, nothing much has changed since I was a teenager.

I guess, instead of spending so much time debating the lime limit on abortion, the parties should be thinking of ways to encourage teenagers not to give into peer pressure to have sex, and if they do have sex because they want to, then making sure sufficient contraception options are available.

There needs to be a lot more, relationship education for young people, rather than just saying, "don't do it" or "if you are going to do it, be safe", they need to know why, and about the emotions they are going through etc

In case there was any confusion, that suggestion was entirely facetious.

Discounting medical problems - I do think the limit of 24 weeks should be lower if it's just an unwanted pregnancy. I have become very good friends with a Mother of a 24 weeker who is now a 4 year old girl.

I read yesterday in Mail on Sunday a story in the words of a Mother who lost her baby at 14 weeks - Her words did make a mark.

Short answer - I agree with SophieM on pretty much all of this. I've been listening to the "debate" on the JV show on this and have already got really angry so I'll keep it brief! All these stories about people's babies who have survived at younger than 24 weeks are a bit of a red herring in my view. I think that's a separate issue as to whether women still have access to abortions. I can't see that anyone goes into an abortion post 20 weeks without serious consideration and consultation and to take away that choice is wrong IMO.

On a ranty, personal note: I do anything I can to not get pregnant. I've never wanted children and would be devastated if I became pregnant. If I found out late, and couldn't abort because some bunch of MPs had decided to lower the limit I would be livid. I don't actually know what I would do. Adoption is NOT an option. I do not WANT to be pregnant at all! I fear the same as a previous hitcher (MA?) in that there would be a rise in illegal, backstreet operations. And I would seriously consider it if I was in the situation. And I am a perfectly rational, sane person! To alienate an already vulnerable group in society on something that has such an impact on their future lives is completely wrong IMO.

As a complete aside, but still related.... if you were on the pill and ran packets back to back (as I do), how would you know you were pregnant? There would be no absence of periods to alert you?