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."

"I believe any woman should make a decision about her pregnancy within the current timeframe of the law."

The only thing I disagree with about this kate middleton is the arbitary time frame of the law.

That was the point I made earlier. We're not talking about situations where we have a definite abortion vs healthy baby outcome.

I'm losing your point a bit christina, sorry, and really must go to bed.

I'm unclear whether you think 'some foetus' may be born with a disability which won't have been detected so we should be able to abort any of them' or 'a healthy baby may be disabled at a later date'

Either way I feel it's largely irrelevant. I understand why disability has been brought in but it's an unfair comparison given that unlike pregnancy itself disability can't be detected (if at all) until a later stage and many disabilities which can be detected in gestation are damaging and painful to mum as well as baby.

These heartbreaking instances are not the same as an otherwise healthy (as far as we can tell) foetus and deliberately injecting a substance into it to end its life and then deliver it.

That to me is identical to giving birth to it and then injecting the substance.

I feel for the women in that position and hope that if nothing else this discussion allows them to access support.

I think most people would support the idea that abortion up to say 12 weeks could be supervised by say a midwife or practice nurse; up to 24 weeks by perhaps one doctor or a senior midwife and after 24 weeks, one doctor.

I think many people, me included, could support no time limit if it was on the basis of terminating the pregnancy not the foetus if the feotus is at the stage of being viable if it were born.

But the repetition of And yes, I don't uphold the 'rights' of any foetus - I find that really chilling and untenable.

If you can't convince someone like me then you really have little chance. I've said this before to you Christina but such dogmatism could well be counter productive in any public or parliamentary debate as you may well find it simply hardens the resolve of the anti -choice side/ make it tougher /cut the time limits side.

Me too katemiddleton. But my point is that women should be supported and enabled to make their own decisions about their own pregnancies at all stages.

Women start making decisions about their pregnancy as soon as they find out that they're pregnant or can face it. For most of us, that's pretty early on.

For some women, particularly those in domestic abuse situations, those who have been raped, girls under the age of consent, those with chaotic life styles, those whose contraception has failed but haven't realised, that point of realisation may come in the second or even third trimester.

My point is that these women should have the same right to make decisions about whether or not to continue their pregnancy. Particularly in late pregnancy, they should have access to counselling and support that enables them to think through all options (including adoption) and space and time to make that decision, free from the fear of prosecution.

That's it really. Hardly an extremist view.

Night night.

Ending an unwanted pregnancy is much less traumatic if you rationalise it to yourself in terms of not being a 'baby' - this is why a hell of a lot of women don't suffer the trauma & angst that others seem to

Do you really believe that?

When I went through my abortion, I rationalised to myself that it wasn't a "baby", many women do. It didn't lessen the hurt, if thats what your getting at?

Mental health issues in women after an abortion are not discussed enough; which is very sad.

"I'm not twisting your words katemiddleton. You clearly said that you agree with late abortion 'in certain circumstances' ie if the foetus will be severely disabled."

Severely disabled is a bit subjective. Often late abortions are carried out when there is no prospect of having a living child. It's akin to switching off the life support machine of someone who is brain dead. Often the foetus has such extreme abnormalities there is no hope of survival.

I have to admit I worry about disablity discrimination. For example I do not think that abortion because the foetus will be deaf is unacceptable. I am uneasy about Down's syndrome foetuses being aborted post 24 weeks. (Unless the Down's has caused extreme defects. my father's cousin died from Down's due to heart defects and other complications)

Thankfully no one's personal opinion decides law. The ethics of complex situations are thrashed out by MPs and lawyers.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10183668/MPs-Abortions-being-carried-out-for-cleft-palates.html

The difficulty with these cases is that we do not have enough knowledge to judge. For example if the clef palate child had trisomy 18 then that child is doomed to die a horrible death. Maybe the parents felt that a late termination was a form of enthunasia. Certainly I can see why parents might choose this option after a lot of soul searching.

My feeling is that late term abortions should be approved by a court of law with strong evidence from doctors the baby really has a life limiting condition.

It doesn't actually say that an abortion was carried out at 40 weeks because a baby had a cleft palate. It says that one/some were carried out after 24 weeks because of a cleft palate. That could mean 25 weeks, it could mean 40. We simply don't know. Presumably the doctors who made the decision had all the facts.

(I'm not saying that it's a-ok if it was done earlier, that's thankfully not my decision to make because I don't know - but IMO it's a bit misleading to imply that there are lots of abortions being carried out at 40 weeks 'just' because of a cleft palate)

There are very few late abortions at all in the UK. I support the fact it is lawful to abort even at that stage for disability. Over 90% of parents with a down's baby aborts although thankfully these days most of those paernts find out earlier. However if yo believe life begins at conception (like Catholics) then it makes absolutely no difference at all whether you abort at 1 week after your period is late or 40 weeks- you are still murdering a life.

reallytired*. It is impossible to know the extent of disability that foetus with Down's syndrome has before it's born.

And in those instances user an individual does have the right to decide for them when they think life 'begins'.

Downs often comes hand in hand with numerous other problems, many of which aren't compatible with life. I wouldn't judge anybody for feeling that this wasn't something they could cope with. The thing with disability is that it's a very long term consideration - it's not a question of a dependent for a decade and a half, it really is a life sentence in some ways.

Now someone might well ask me why I can understand this and not a woman who wishes to terminate at say 34 weeks for another reason. Before anyone triumphantly declares this means I don't value disabled babies, the answer is simply that I do understand it. I can have absolute compassion for a terrified 15 year old who concealed her pregnancy, a woman who was in a horrific domestic abuse situation, a woman who had been trafficked and raped. I would not call them evil horrible women at ALL. I would be very upset for them and want to help.

However, imagine they give birth early and say 'I don't want this baby!' We would not inject it with a lethal substance, watch it die and calmly say 'yes, OK.' We would make alternative arrangements for its care. The fact it is still on the wrong side of the mother as it were as this stage of gestation is to me irrelevant. I appreciate it is not for others but while I support abortion, I don't at this stage. It's too much.

Indeed user. Late term abortions are very rare. So much so that the DoH had to change how it reported the stats after Joanne Jepson managed to identify a woman from the supposedly anonymous information in the public domain.

But they haven't given birth In the scenarios you suggest.

Why not stick with the situation that these women are actually in? Which is pregnant when they don't want to be.

Of course women should have access to information about adoption and all the alternatives open to them

But compassion for another's situation entails letting them make the best ( informed ) decision at the time, whether we agree with it or not.

Well we will have to agree to disagree as I echo another posters words about the situation being 'chilling' - that is how it also feels to me.

And I find the frequent recourse to abstractions depressingly dismissive of the horrendously difficult situations that women who seek late abortion are in.

Christina and user, it has been pointed out several times on this thread that late term abortions are currently only legal in restricted circumstances.

Yes, it is difficult to determine the extent of disability in utero. Sometimes babies can be born without the disability they were thought to have. It's also difficult to judge whether something is not compatible with life. There was a thread by a Mner last year whose daughter was born with trisomy 18 and she was objecting to the use of 'incompatible with life' because her daughter was very much alive.

Christina, again, abortion is not the only solution to 'pregnant when they don't want to be'. You haven't given a convincing argument as to why the woman gets to decide whether a viable foetus lives or dies.

Because it's in her body.

As I've said many times, of course women who are pregnant when they don't want to be should have access to information about all options including adoption.

And you haven't given a compelling reason why you should be able to dictate what choices another woman makes about her pregnancy

Yeah. That's not a very convincing argument when it doesn't have to be in her body to survive.

I think people have explained why the woman's choice to no longer be pregnant shouldn't impact on whether a viable foetus is born dead or alive.

Christina you said But my point is that women should be supported and enabled to make their own decisions about their own pregnancies at all stages

You have not explained why you think terminating the pregnancy must mean terminating the feotus.

And to be absolutely clear I , and others who have asked this question, do not agree with bumbleys position on abortion.

The life of a baby starts when it is born.

I don't think many people feel this is truth. I certainly don't.

Downs often comes hand in hand with numerous other problems, many of which aren't compatible with life.

How convenient. I have no idea what you're talking about. If it is the heart thing, that's perfectly compatible with life. Very manageable op.