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."

Why dont they just campaign to remove the need for doctor permission before 24 weeks? In all parts of the uk.

They're people like me, like you, like your sister, like your daughter who find themselves pregnant in a situation where they are prevented from accessing help (eg domestic abuse), don't realise they're pregnant (eg contraceptive failure) or have tried to deny the pregnancy (eg have been raped, are under the age of consent and/or terrified to tell parents).

Yes. That doesn't make their choice any less awful.

I was quoting someone else really who described the bed pan and parts of foetuses scenario. I know it wouldn't be like that but was just responding to an unpleasant image someone else had described.

Why dont they just campaign to remove the need for doctor permission before 24 weeks? In all parts of the uk.

This would be the best solution.

Why does the baby have to be 'terminated' though. If it can survive shouldn't they try to deliver it alive. Then put it up for adoption of the other doesn't want it.

100% this.

If the woman decides she doesn't want the baby then fair enough, that's her choice, but I don't think she should be allowed to have the baby killed when it could be born healthy and live a life with someone else via adoption.

future no-one has said that the decision to terminate a pregnancy at any stage, let alone in the second or third trimester, isn't awful and difficult for many women.

Of course it is. Deciding whether to continue a pregnancy or not is a life-changing situation for many women. Not all. Some choose to terminate and have no ambivalent feelings about that.

writer but there's no guarantee that any baby will be 'born healthy' is there?

If a woman chooses to terminate at 24 weeks, the baby may survive but may well not 'be healthy'.

No-one is advocating 'baby killing'. The decision to end a pregnancy is very, very different to this.

Apparently this is an incredibly rare situation anyway. Its worth giving the baby a chance at life at least, if otherwise healthy and viable. This could be fetuses right up to due date we are talking about if the law was changed as the rcm wants.

There will be Drs in one room trying to save a prem babies life.
Whilst in another room terminating a full term babies life.
If a women doesn't want to be a so-called 'forced birther" or be forced to continue a pregnancy. Then why can't the baby be delivered and adopted. Why does the baby have to be terminated. It makes no sense.

christina - so because the baby might not be born healthy, (I'm assuming you mean problems related to childbirth) then it may as well just by killed?

And what is terminating the pregnancy then if it's not ending the life of the baby?

YY to not needing doctors' permission before 24 weeks.

That would speed things up enormously for those that are certain they don't want a pregnancy or baby.

Waiting weeks to access a termination from presenting to a doctor a couple of days after missing a period is worse for everyone concerned.

Writer, terminating a pregnancy is not ending the life of a baby.
The life of a baby starts when it is born.

writer that wasn't my point. My point is that this issue is far more complex than abortion vs healthy baby.

Absolutely mango. I appreciate that this isn't how individual women think of their pregnancy, but the law makes a very clear distinction between a foetus and a baby.

Well my view is that when a woman is pregnant she has a life inside of her and to terminate the pregnancy is to end that life.

I just don't understand how a person could be so ambivalent about a term baby as to think it's fine to just kill it because the woman doesn't want it.

And I say my view as someone whose had a termination herself and I consider myself to have ended a life.

mango that might be the strict legal definition but we all know there is a huge difference between a term baby and a 6 week foetus

I agree writer

What you describe writer about yourview and your decision in your pregnancy is exactly what the RCM and BPAS would like to extend to all pregnant women.

Other people might make choices that we disagree with or wouldn't make ourselves, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't have the right to make that choice.

I think some would argue christina that at that stage in the pregnancy the unborn child is a person in their own right and as such has to be born alive so they may make choices later.

I think it's interesting to consider how important legal personhood is. Historically, certain groups have been denied personhood and killed/maimed within the law but the majority would now consider those actions to be morally wrong. I don't think the legal definition of a 'person' influences many people's opinions of late term abortion. They still consider it to be morally wrong.

Some may well argue that katemiddleton but that's not what the law says.

If an individual woman views her pregnancy in that way and believes that the unborn child is a person in their own right then fine, take action according to that.

Where does that leave us regarding unborn children with severe disabilities that the law currently permits the mother to abort though? Are they less a 'person in their own right' because of their disability?

bumble for the umpteenth time... if a woman considers late abortion to be morally wrong. Fine. They don't have to have one.

Other women may have different views, and they should also have the right to exercise their own choices.

Well no, the law at present will not allow terminating a pregnancy after 24 weeks.

I don't think anyone feels that a child is not a person in their own right but in those instances it's about minimising suffering which I'm all for. I can't get my head around ending the life of an otherwise healthy unborn child, then having the mother give birth to it, as somehow minimising suffering.

I can't get my head around ending the life of an otherwise healthy unborn child, then having the mother give birth to it, as somehow minimising suffering.

Exactly - I just don't understand it.

I had my termination at 8 weeks gestation any maybe it makes me a hypocrite, I don't know, but I don't think that can be compared to terminating a 38 week gestation baby.

katemiddleton the law allows terminating a pregnancy after 24 weeks for foetal abnormality (Ground E of the Abortion Act 1967).

I absolutely uphold your rights to make your own decisions in your own pregnancy. All the BPAS and RCM are asking is that all women be afforded those rights.

Christina, why should people stand back and allow something to happen when they think it is wrong? To use an analogy related to lack of personhood - It would be like saying "You don't like the idea that masters can kill their slaves? Then don't kill your slaves. "
Just because something is legal doesn't make it right and it certainly doesn't mean that we should just turn a blind eye to it because it's not our 'slaves' being killed.