Royal College of Midwives backs abolition of abortion law that could see women terminate unborn child at any point

[ThatsMyStapler]

Surely the majority of people needing/wanting a medical abortion do so for very good reasons, and also as quickly as is possible.

Royal College of Midwives backs abolition of abortion law that could see women terminate unborn child at any point

Telegraph Link

he Royal College of Midwives (RCM) is facing criticism after calling for abortion to be decriminalised, without consulting its members on the issue.
The union, which represents almost 30,000 midwives and health workers, has said it gives its “full support” to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), the UK’s biggest abortion provider, in its campaign for abortion to be removed from criminal law.
Prof Cathy Warwick, chief executive of the RCM, is also chairman of the board of trustees of BPAS.
It is currently against the law for women to terminate a foetus after 24 weeks unless there is a medical reason to do so, while abortions earlier in a pregnancy are only legal if two doctors agree to it.
But the RCM is backing calls for the legal limits to be scrapped and abortion to instead be regulated in the same way as other medical procedures, at the discretion of doctors.

There is a petition to stop this, and they say;

"Your campaign is severely out of touch with what women actually think and want. A ComRes poll in March 2014 found that 88% of women favoured a total and explicit ban on sex-selective abortion, whilst another in October that year registered a similar figure of 85%. The March poll also found 92% of women agreeing that a woman requesting an abortion should always be seen in person by a qualified doctor. Whilst in 2006, a Guardian / MORI poll found that 47% of women wanted a reduction in the upper time limit, a 2012 Angus Reid poll found this number had increased to 59% of women."

My dd was born at 38 weeks and needed no assistance. Should women be really able to abort a foetus this late in the pregnancy, simply because she's changed her mind?
There is absolutely no evidence to support this theory. In other words, it's never happened. Read the evidence.

If there is no change in termination rates it sounds like the current law is doing a pretty good job?

I don't think know= I don't know.

My phone is getting terrible for putting words in

Red I honestly don't know enough about the cases to comment. I'm not sure we can use current data to predict what would happen if it were decriminalised however.

That said, I don't think women would be rushing to get late term abortions like some people are suggesting.

To repeat my post from earlier in the thread:

Doctors will NOT be aborting healthy babies as late as say 36 weeks. Simply because ethically that still will be unjustifiable regardless of the circumstances. Because to put it bluntly there is no way an abortion at 36 weeks would be in the best, long term, interests of the woman concerned over and above other options at that point in the pregnancy.

So can we get away from that nonsense that this is going to start happening, and in large numbers, because it won't.

There still is a safeguard in place and that is the discretion of doctors who are bound to protect the wellbeing of their patient.

Or are people saying that doctors are unethical and like doing abortions as often as possible, without any question at all?

Or are we saying that the judgement of two doctors can't be trusted?

If that is the case, I think we better have a debate on that rather than a debate on abortion as its implications are far more troubling and wide ranging...

Just because it's never happened doesn't mean it couldn't.

At the moment there could be a woman who has tried and was denied. It wouldn't be noted as it was never carried out.

Bill for some of us it is not that simple. The RCM has not signed up to anything that states - have an abortion at any point - that is the weird rhetoric and media spin that is fuelling the fear of many people, including midwives who are protesting.

It is about not criminalising women who make decisions, sometime desperate decisions. Women like Natalie Towers do exist, she is just the one who was prosecuted and jailed.

In the case of late abortions I think a woman should have the right to terminate the pregnancy, but not the right to terminate the life.

This is the sentiment I identify most with.
The woman should be able to terminate her pregnancy at any time, the doctors must decide whether it is prudent to terminate the life.

Lets be honest here...... They take place in most cases because the woman does not want the inconvienience of having to carry a baby for nine months, and give birth to said baby. A baby they could easily adopt.They use it as a late form of contraception......

Bridgetoc, to answer that statement:
I've had 2 abortions, one about 12 weeks & one about 8 weeks.
It was not the 'inconvenience' of carrying and giving birth to a baby that led me to abort, it was simply that I didn't want a baby.

I suppose it was a late form of contraception in a way, but it was as early on in the pregnancies as I could possibly get them - both pregnancies I went to the dr within 2 days of missing my period.

Had my access to a termination been speedier then they would have been carried out within a month - not a baby at all.

People who are at the very, very late stages of pregnancy are not using abortion as 'late contraception', those people are very, very different.
Don't conflate the two - it makes you sound hysterical.

Yes absolutely Red. I think it goes without saying that if a woman can be helped - with medication, counselling, refuge, other support - to be ok with continuing the pregnancy, then that is far preferable to a late term abortion. There should absolutely be more access to that kind of treatment and support. But we still have to decide what the abortion rights should be if that support doesn't work, isn't accessed, or isn't available.

Needaclevernn - you don't draw the line, because you don't have to. If trained medical professionals are assessing each case with the benefit of knowledge and compassion, then they'll help each woman to make the right decision for them, and to a lesser extent for their foetus and any other existing children. No lines need to drawn.

They won't, Bill.

I honestly doubt anyone on this thread will have changed their view in the slightest bit at the end of it. So why bother?

I am having a cup of tea and amusing myself enormously at the thought that the word bumhole was put up on the boards on Count Down.

At the moment there could be a woman who has tried and was denied. It wouldn't be noted as it was never carried out.
For social reasons, because they didn't want to be pregnant due to an insane need to party? Nonsense. Nobody is going to change their mind at the last minute unless they have some serious health problems.

Which brings it back to there is no right or wrong answer really doesn't it?

You can make everyone happy. What ever the outcome there is going to be someone who wishes a different outcome

Whats the big problem with terminating the pregnancy but not the baby's life in late term situations where the pregnancy is viable? Why is that not a position pro-abortion at any stage people will support?

NN I share your conflicted feelings.

Whats the big problem with terminating the pregnancy but not the baby's life in late term situations where the pregnancy is viable? Why is that not a position pro-abortion at any stage people will support?

Agree

'pro late abortion' yes that's it - everyone wants women to wait until as late as possible to abort - we are all really in favour of that - don;t be silly

pro choice - pro a woman's right to choose - even if that's past 24 weeks - which statistically very few terminations ever are

The RCM and just asking for women not to be criminalised

NN I share your conflicted feelings

It's a difficult thing to discuss. I AM pro choice and I respect a woman's choice but at 36 weeks that foetus could be born live and have no health issues if the mother was to go into spontaneous labour. It brings up the question of where is the line drawn? A day before the due date? A week? Two weeks? During labour?

Abortion as a crime feels very wrong to me

Did someone describe people as being pro late abortion?
I guess we need a descriptor for people who are pro choice up to a point and people who are pro choice completely at any stage of pregnancy.
I would describe myself as perfectly happy with the current situation. So pro choice up to a point. I think of it as pro choice personally.

Whats the big problem with terminating the pregnancy but not the baby's life in late term situations where the pregnancy is viable? Why is that not a position pro-abortion at any stage people will support?

Bear in mind I don't think that there are many 'abortion at any stage people' here I don't think it is a case of it being an unsupportable position. Just that it should be decided on a case by case basis... giving birth may be the thing the woman is desperate to avoid... she may not want to ever think of that child being alive and able to find her, we have no way of legislating for every conceivable reason a woman does not want to live with a child (of rape, violence, etc).

There are few such cases, thankfully. Sadly the latest that we know about resulted in a woman with MH issues being jailed.

Bombardier, the problem is when you have a foetus that already may have issues, eg drug dependency, FAS, etc, then you induce labour so a baby whose health is compromised anyway is born at 30 weeks and if it survives will have disabilities that will mean it spends the next 18 years in care and possibly never lives independently... Is that really a better outcome than terminating the pregnancy? Really?

Needaclever- it's not about making everyone happy. I don't give a shit if people are unhappy about it, I want women to have bodily autonomy.

Just that it should be decided on a case by case basis...
Okay, when do we get to decide on the medical needs of men on a case by case basis? Should we be involved if he wishes to have a vasectomy? Should that be decided on a case by case basis?