Mumsnet Talk

And you thought the minister for women and equality was bad... Our HEALTH MINISTER wants to reduce the abortion time limit to 12 weeks!!!!

Front page of tomorrow's Times.

I am furious. I am furious all the time about the bullshit decisions this government makes. I am disgusted by the choice of health minister. I constantly rage at the lack of common sense.

This is the Times though.. it's not policy yet (and I will chain my self to number 10 before it becomes law), and I don't believe it will ever happen. It's a bandwagon for people to jump on. Interesting timing too, given the US perspective on this subject.

Fuxache.

???

Why are you furious about lowering the limit for abortions? I'm not saying I agree or disagree, but I would have thought 3 months is enough time to decide whether or not you want to keep a baby.

they should raise it to up to birth for all babies

Surely it's just a tactic to make lowering it to 20 weeks seem more reasonable

Tend to agree Threesocks. Though I can see that there might be instances where exceptions could be made.

Proud And what if you don't find out until 9 weeks and then it takes a week to get an appt at your docs and then it's a 3 week wait?

What if your 12 week or 20 week scan reveals life threatening abnormalities?

12 weeks is a ridiculously low limit.

I am furious, but I'm also old enough to know it won't happen.

90% of abortions take place before 13 weeks, why does he want to stop the 10% that happen after when clearly many of them are necessary and most are not after 24 weeks. what a twat.

proud eh? I read threesocks as saying there should be no abortion limit, so you can abort at 39 weeks. Although that isn't abortion at that far along. So what do you mean by exceptions?

12w is not three months. Plenty of women have zero symptoms well after that, so if you aren't actively ttc you might well reach 13w without noticing.

Health policy should be evidence based. If she were making this statement as a private individual or constituency MP that would be a different matter. But she is confusing her private opinion with her job.

I agree with MayThe - it will make 20 weeks not seem so bad so I believe it's all tactical.

just to clarify
you can "abort" up to birth for disability
that is why I think the limit should be up to birth in all cases

what happens threesocks when a baby is aborted but lives, because its full term? what do you propose happens to full term babies? kill them at birth? i think that steps into a whole new territory that i for one would never be comfortable with.

i do not agree with a 12 week limit at all.

i would say leave it as is, or perhaps reduce the limit to 22 weeks, simply because many babies now live from 24 weeks.

If there are abnormalities there is no upper limit

I would be hugely upset if they ever did reduce it to 12 weeks but I would be equally upset if they extended it to full term

Agreed, they have caught onto to the power of the Overton Window

We are living in dangerous times in regards to the roll back of the gains that women have made.

VicarInaTutu sorry don't get what you mean

Wouldn't happen. They inject the foetus in the womb to ensure it dies.

so under what threesocks proposes, you could kill a baby by lethal injection up to the day its due?

jesus. really?

i think that having 24 weeks to decide if you want to be a parent or not is enough time.

i would never support a 12 week limit. but i would equally never support no limit at all.

no you would end discrimination before birth.

Newname its not a foetus if the woman is 39 weeks pregnant.

Newname its not a foetus if the woman is 39 weeks pregnant.

Abortion can be for many reasons. If you're going to give birth to a severely mentally and physically disabled child, that might kill you if it gets to full term, then YES, a woman should be able to choose to abort it at any point.

I wonder how people like Jeremy Hunt get elected and then I see dozens of stupid comments like that and then simply despair.