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."

Red - I think the expression 'hard cases make bad law' is very relevant here.

Speak- child destruction law:

^(1)Subject as hereinafter in this subsection provided, any person who, with intent to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive, by any wilful act causes a child to die before it has an existence independent of its mother, shall be guilty of felony, to wit, of child destruction, and shall be liable on conviction thereof on indictment to penal servitude for life:
Provided that no person shall be found guilty of an offence under this section unless it is proved that the act which caused the death of the child was not done in good faith for the purpose only of preserving the life of the mother.
(2)For the purposes of this Act, evidence that a woman had at any material time been pregnant for a period of twenty-eight weeks or more shall be primâ facie proof that she was at that time pregnant of a child capable of being born alive.^

bumble I disagree with that, as does the law and apparently the medical profession too.

The medical profession would STILL be bound by law. Just a different one.

And you are saying that the mentally ill should be held criminal responsible, which is even worse law.

Sorry, where in that quote does is say that the victim of the crime is the unborn child?

Speak, I disagree that the medical profession see the gpwtus as part of the woman's body! The law doesn't see it as 'part' of the woman either.

Causing the child to die is the crime of child destruction. The crime against the mother would be the assault against her. Here is a recent case WARNING: could be upsetting. The charges were grievous bodily harm against the mother and child destruction.

I've read about that case before, and it is an appalling attack.

The crime of child destruction was committed against the mother, as was the assault. Her child was destroyed, and she was assaulted.

If the law sees a foetus as an independent entity, will a woman be convicted of an assault if she drinks excessively and causes foetal growth anomalies? Or if she smokes and causes restricted size? What if she drives dangerously and has an accident, causing her baby to die in utero? Will she be convicted of manslaughter as well?

the genetically unique human entity that is capable of living without her is not part of her body. By terminating it, she is not making a decision for her body. She's making a decision for its.

I agree with bumblymummy 100%. Very reasoned, ethical posting and very patient too in response to some frankly rude and abusive posting.

Speak, I don't think it's as simple as that. The charge of child destruction is a very difficult one to prove because you have to prove that the attacker intended to kill the child, not just harm the mother i.e. that the intended victim was the child.

I think it would be difficult to prove that the mother drank or smoked or drove dangerously intentionally to harm the baby. Because it's so difficult to convict people under the Child Destruction law, there is talk about bringing in a different law that would allow charges to be brought against someone who recklessly caused the death of a child without having to prove that that was their intent(so similar to a manslaughter charge).

Thank you goneto. That's very kind of you to say

bumble I deliberately said " in legal terms the foetus is part of the mother's body in asmuch that it does not have a separate legal status."

The piece that you quote uses the phrase ..."causes a child to die before it has an existence independent of its mother..."

It seems very clear that a foetus does not have an existence or identity (for legal purposes) separate to its mother before it is born.

The offence is against the pregnant woman, not the foetus.

christina, the phrase 'existence independent of its mother' is just recognising that it's not yet born. It's used because they used the word 'child' rather than foetus.

As stated above, the offence has to be proved to have been intended to be against the child, not just the mother, in order for it to be child destruction.

No, there has to be proof beyond reasonable doubt that the intent was specifically to kill the unborn child as well as harm the mother. That doesn't recognise anything about the status of the unborn child, beyond that it has to be of at least 28 weeks gestation. Nowhere in that quote you have does it say anything about the unborn child being the victim.

bumble exactly.

"It's not yet born" is a status which is different from '"has been born". There is a difference in legal status between the two.

"No, there has to be proof beyond reasonable doubt that the intent was specifically to kill the unborn child as well as harm the mother. "

Yes, I said that just upthread^^

You seem to be a bit hung up on a particular word. Just because the word 'victim' isn't explicitly used doesn't mean that the child isn't the victim. The whole point is that it's not just about the harm caused to the mother during the attack - the offence against child is considered (and has to be proven) separately.

bumble the offence against the unborn child can only be considered in the context of the mother. An unborn child cannot, by definition, be a separate entity. It exists inside its mother.

I appreciate that you see it as a victim of crime, but the law doesn't. It's the mother that is the victim, hence the phrase 'unborn child'. You can't have an unborn child without a pregnant woman.

Yes it's two separate offences against the mother. You want the "victim hood" of the child to prove it has a legal existence as a separate entity to the mother. I don't think that this piece of legislation can be used to back up that position.

If a child is born with disablities as the result of assault against the mother would that child be able to sue the mother's assailant?

They may be able to but would unlikely to be successful. Although even if they could it wouldn't support bumble's argument because a 'born child' has a different legal status to a 'not yet born child'.

In this article, the difference between a foetus and child for legal purposes is explicitly made:-

www.theguardian.com/law/2014/dec/04/mother-drank-heavily-pregnant-not-guilty-crime

Penguin if you think bumbley is a troll they report her posts.

MN have deleted some obviously inflammatory posts from this thread, so I'm sure they'd take a close look.

christina, no, the offence is considered separately. It has to be proven that the attack was intended against the child with the view of killing it. That's why it is so difficult to prove even though attack against the woman is obvious.

An unborn child can very much be a separate entity because, biologically, it is not part of the woman. Just because something is inside something else does not mean that it is a part of it.

ReallyTired, that's a really interesting question. I wonder if there have been any cases.

I think that what I (personally) would be comfortable with is that anything over 24 weeks is a 'termination of pregnancy' as discussed up thread, where the medical professionals decide whether a baby is born or a foetus terminated - as far as the mother is concerned she has terminated & that is the end of it for her.
This would raise massive ethical issues about the rights of the mother and child and would be unlikely to get past any medical ethics panel anywhere. And what if the other parent decided to assert his rights? What rights would he even have in this scenario?
I can't think of anything worse than forcing a woman to either continue an unwanted pregnancy to term or to 'terminate' after 24 weeks and not tell her the outcome (live birth - possibly with intensive intervention, or, if later term, healthy birth/live birth with disabilities/stillbirth) - beyond saying 'well, you've terminated and that's the end of it for you'.
The potential for huge pyschological damage to all parties is unthinkable and, in my view, making a woman go through this would be highly unethical.

Christina, obviously the foetus is treated differently in law. If it wasn't then abortion wouldn't be allowed at all, under any circumstances - it would be treated the same as infanticide. However, not recognising the foetus as a person in law does not mean that it is part of the mother and can not be thought of or treated as a separate entity. I think this is where we are disagreeing - please correct me if I'm wrong.

That is indeed one of the areas in which we're disagreeing.

You say that 'obviously the foetus is treated differently in law' then go on to make arguments that contradict this.

The legal status of an entity is what it is now (or at the point of time in question) not what it was not what it will/might be.