BBC NEWS | Politics | Abortion law facing new challenge

Abortion law facing new challenge
Critics of Britain's abortion laws will ask ministers to cut the normal time limit for a termination from 24 weeks to 20 as part of a new bill.
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 in 1967.

But the British Medical Association says the number surviving at 24 weeks is still "extremely small".

The Human Tissue and Embryos Bill will be debated in November.

According to the Department of Health, there were 193,000 abortions in England and Wales last year. Of that total, 89% were performed in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy.
'Foetal viability'

Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who used to be a nurse, wants to see the time limit reduced.

She sits on the Commons Science and Technology Committee which will debate a possible change in the law.

"In good hospitals with good neo-natal units we know that 42% of babies who are born at 23 week survive, 72% at 24 weeks," Ms Dorries told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend.

We still felt that the number of foetuses below 24 weeks who survived successfully was really extremely small
Dr Tony Calland, BMA


Julia Millington, political director of the Pro-Life Alliance, said advances in science meant "our understanding of foetal viability has changed".

"We say that if the law is to be based on viability then at the very least it should accurately reflect what we currently know about viability," she said.

The Pro-Life Alliance also wants a "cooling-off" period, because it believes some women are having an abortion without the time to think it through.

But Dr Tony Calland, chair of the BMA's medical ethics committee, said that after debating the issue, his organisation felt that despite "very considerable" scientific advances, the time limit should stay the same.

"We still felt that the number of foetuses below 24 weeks who survived successfully was really extremely small," he said.

'Up to them'

Dr Calland also said he wanted to remove the requirement for a woman wanting an abortion in the first three months to gain permission from two different doctors.


Women should have "an autonomy to make decisions over their own health, their own body", he said.

"As long as they have had all the risks and benefits explained to them, discussed with them so they have an appropriate amount of information to make a legitimate decision, we feel it is up to them to decide what is best for them," he said.

Former hospital doctor Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris also sits on the Commons science and technology committee and believes there is a need to update the law.

He said benefits could include, for instance, women being allowed to have a medical abortion - in which they take a pill at up to nine weeks' pregnancy - completed at home rather than in hospital.

When the Abortion Act was first passed the normal time limit for termination was 28 weeks, but this was lowered to 24 in 1990.


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INTERESTING
i personally feel they should cut the time limit, only because i have seen and read about babies survving born at 23 weeks. a girl in the hospital when my son was born was doing well born at 23 weeks, you could never tell if they didnt tell ya

40wks for a full term pregnancy. 24 wks means you have already gone past half way mark

england needs to also do something about the promiscuity in society so that can stop all these unwanted children