From BBC News

Minister defends abortion limit

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 for terminations to be cut.

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

Ms Primarolo was 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. [snip]

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. [snip]

[Conservative MP Nadine Dorries] pressed her to say whether she was content with the 24 week upper limit, when viability rates for babies born below that age were quite high in NHS hospitals where there were good neonatal units.

Ms Primarolo said: "The department's view is yes, that's what Parliament has decided and that's where we are. It's for the House to decide on that." [snip]

Ms Dorries asked: "If the evidence shows that a foetus could feel pain at 20 weeks or less, would the department consider altering its guidelines or making amendments to the Act?"

Ms Primarolo said the department did not see a connection with the viability of a foetus, but it would continue looking at the issue through its research.

When the abortion law was passed, in the 1960s, babies born at 34 weeks only had a 3% chance of survival (they have a 97% chance of survival today). Better ventilation techniqies and nursing in specialist units meant that by the early 1980s, babies born at 26 weeks had a 30% chance of survival, and this was what pushed Lord Steel's reform of the act in 1990 so that the limit was changed to 24 weeks from 28 weeks. Nowadays babies born at 26 weeks have an 80% chance of survival (due to the invention of artificial surfactant, which helps prevent the collapse of lungs), and babies born at 24 weeks do have some sort of chance.

I think there are now good reasons to cut the time limit: even according to Ms Primarolo herself, most abortions are carried out well before then anyway. The 24 weeks survival rate is currently thought to be about 15%. What surprises me is that the Royal College of Nursing is supporting maintaining the current limit. So a nurse could be in the position of one minute watching a 24 week old foetus dying after abortion, and the next could be battling to save the life of a 24 week old premature baby - and being asked to see no conflict in those roles.

By keeping the abortion law acceptable to the majority of people, we safeguard it. I've already read many opinion pieces (by women) on how the law isn't acceptable, about how women use abortion as contraception etc. Lowering the time-limit, whilst maintaining what is in effect abortion on demand, would seem to me to be the best route to take.

What worries me is that the current limit allows anti-abortion groups to describe abortion as baby-murder. Lowering the limit to 22 or even 20 weeks would stop that, at least in the minds of the general public.