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."

OurBlanche - unless even under your new regime you are actually going to prevent late abortions if the baby is probably viable, it is not an academic question - certainly not for the baby - nor would it then be an extreme case to prove a point but an actual case involving the morality of killing a viable baby. I simply want to know how it can be morally justifiable to kill a viable baby in utero but not if that same baby is born. That seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable question in a scenario where people are talking about aborting viable babies.

I would love to have abortion fully legalised anywhere, but ... the problem is that this is not just about women's bodily autonomy.
Women in abusive relationships could be coerced into terminating a pregnancy, or they could feel forced to do it because the fetus is a girl and their husband + parents in law want a boy.

Not sure how to tackle this. Very easy access to early term abortions would certainly help to remove the need for any late abortions ... except those that are carried out because of misogyny.

I don't know how many Indian and Chinese families live in the UK, and how strong their prejudice against girls is when they are not living in their culture of origin anymore, but I see that could be a problem.
Of course, in the long run, this has to be tackled by education, but in the short term ... it is so incredibly sad.

And then there's the problem of abusive relationships. On one hand, a woman might want to end a pregnancy to get out of an abusive relationships with no baby to tie her to the abusive ex.
On the other hand, an abusive man might demand an abortion that the woman does not want.

There needs to be a much better screening system - not just for abortions, all medical professionals should be educated about this and check for it. And then there needs to be a process in place to remove a woman from an abusive relationship immediately.

So, I think counseling should be needed for late term abortions, because this is a highly traumatic process, and I can't imagine that, with easily accessible abortions many women would wait until it is so late.

Does nobody want to help me on the moral difference between aborting a viable baby and killing a newly born? Does the "autonomy over my body" argument really make one moral and the other not?

Yes.
What don't you understand about bodily autonomy? Would you expect a man to donate a kidney to save a child's life? Like, not just ask him nicely, but legally force him?

The RCM statement is so deliberately vague that it makes me think that abortion on demand up to birth is what they are moving towards and this is merely a step on the way.

The statement was an opportunity for them to clarify, if necessary, that the statements in the press about supporting abortion on demand up to birth wasn't what this policy was about. The fact that they explicitly ignored this and put out a very woolly (and ultimately meaningless) statement about reproductive rights gives the impression that, yes, that is exactly what this policy is about.

"Doctors will NOT be aborting healthy babies as late as say 36 weeks."

Well then why change the law at all?

Because it puts the responsibility onto doctors to make a medical decision for the well being of that woman and they are better placed to make that decision than the blunt instrument that is the law. They can look at extreme cases on an individual basis instead.

It reflects the reality that a woman willing to self harm (which trying to abort yourself is), is ill and in desperate need of help rather than a criminal. And thus needs to be treated as if she is ill, rather than go through the cps and courts which may or may not eventually find her guilty. It acknowledges that this process in itself is harmful and inappropriate to vulnerable women in this position. It points out that the law is actually an obstacle to well being and lacks the understanding that a medical opinion provides.

Remember all cases of attempted self abortion or successful self abortion legally have to go under the noses of the CPS, who then have to go back to doctors to assess the mental health of the woman concerned anyway, so its all a bit arse about face. Can you have a conviction relating to self harm, which has no question whatsoever over the mental health / well being of the woman concerned in this matter? This alone makes the legal system being involved in such cases, actually quite questionable in this day and age.

Its been said upthread that the best comparison is the decriminalisation of suicide. Is bringing the law into the cases of attempted suicide appropriate? I think the vast majority of reasonably minded people would now say no, in 2016.

I think people are interpreting the position of the RCM wrongly. Its not about the morally of abortions. Nor is it about extending the limit of abortions. Nor is it encouraging abortions. Its simply saying that the law as it stands is currently harmful and it is not able to judgments which are not harmful to the wellbeing of women.

Instead it is stressing that the only people who are qualified to make judgments about the mental well being of women and their capacity to understand what an abortion is (depending on the stage) and the long term consequences of that, are doctors.

Not lawyers, judges or policeman.

Doctors can already make the decision to allow a woman to have a termination after 24 weeks if they feel that her (mental) health is at risk.

Because it puts the responsibility onto doctors to make a medical decision for the well being of that woman and they are better placed to make that decision than the blunt instrument that is the law. They can look at extreme cases on an individual basis instead.

Or they can look at how much money someone is prepared to pay them to do the procedure. Having the law there protects against the unscrupulous.

Assuming that all doctors make ethical decisions all the time and that patients/foetuses don't need protection from those who might willingly perform unethical operations for financial or other incentives is foolish. You might want to have a look at the doctors involved in the cases of Prince/Michael Jackson/Elvis to get some sort of idea of the things some doctors will do if the incentive for them is great enough.

VestalVirgin There is simply no sensible comparison between the act of killing a viable baby and forcing somebody to donate a kidney and I do not see how anybody with any respect for human life could think that there is. That having been said I would certainly expect any parent to think that the only moral choice was to put their own body second to that of their child's, especially if it would save that child's life. I suspect most Mumsnetters would not hesitate to offer a kidney to their own child if there was compatibility.

The RCM statement is so deliberately vague that it makes me think that abortion on demand up to birth is what they are moving towards and this is merely a step on the way.

TBH, I've always found the RCM incredibly clumsy in how they phrase anything... (I know they have had to clarify other subject in the past as a result of this inability to articulate subjects in a clear fashion. I have to say I'm not their greatest fan).

In fairness though, I do think that in narrowing their definition they would, however, run the risk of not including certain circumstances and the reality is that late term abortions are the ones of the extreme end of the spectrum and the ones that are most likely to be the 'exceptions' to any rule you make.

Which is part of the problem, as these are the cases that are the ones which involve the most vulnerable women.

It has to be down to the discretion of doctors working within their ethical codes and rules of conduct. Doctors will still have a 'cut off point' after which they are going to have to make ever increasingly strong justifications to allow an abortion depending on its term.

But yes, I do agree, that the RCM could have done a lot better in their explanation.

Stands up. Applauds Buffy.

It is placing the decision-making powers to carry out abortions, with all of the attendant moral and ethical issues that poses for us as a society, solely in the hands of - not the people carrying out abortions because the poor old midwives weren't even consulted - in the hands of a few policy-makers who represent a small part of society's thinking on this issue.

No one representing children's rights will be able to weigh in. No one representing the rights of people with disabilities.

It is a nonsense to say this power will never be used after 24 weeks. If it was never going to be used, it wouldn't be sought.

Again - At this stage of pregnancy a woman does not need to abort in order to have bodily autonomy.

I don't give a damn how much bodily autonomy a corpse has.

Yes. Why can't labour be induced? Wouldn't that be a better way of regaining bodily autonomy? That way, nobody has to die!

Or is the objective to kill?

Assuming that all doctors make ethical decisions all the time and that patients/foetuses don't need protection from those who might willingly perform unethical operations for financial or other incentives is foolish. You might want to have a look at the doctors involved in the cases of Prince/Michael Jackson/Elvis to get some sort of idea of the things some doctors will do if the incentive for them is great enough.

So lets talk about American cases, where the health system is intrinsically different, and there is a massive difference in accountability. Yeah ok. That's a bad point, badly made.

If there is a decriminalisation, there would need to be an assessment about how this was accountable and how data was recorded. I can't see how that wouldn't be part of the decriminalisation process.

Besides the truth is, there is actually nothing currently in place that stops a doctor already doing this either. They could break the law if they got given enough money. They would still be legally accountable if there was decriminalisation (just by different laws).

*So lets talk about American cases, where the health system is intrinsically different, and there is a massive difference in accountability. hmm Yeah ok. That's a bad point, badly made.

I wasn't making any sort of point about the American or British system. My point was, that being a doctor doesn't automatically mean that you suddenly become guaranteed to make ethical decisions, which some people seem to assume is automatically comes with your medical qualification on the day you graduate. That's a universal concept that is true of human nature in general regardless of what countries system somebody is operating in.

They were the first ones which sprang to mind, but there are UK ones too, for example the recent cases of doctors offering gender based abortions.

Doctors can already make the decision to allow a woman to have a termination after 24 weeks if they feel that her (mental) health is at risk

Yes they can. But a woman who self harms though the ignorance of not knowing this, is a criminal.

I wasn't making any sort of point about the American or British system. My point was, that being a doctor doesn't automatically mean that you suddenly become guaranteed to make ethical decisions, which some people seem to assume is automatically comes with your medical qualification on the day you graduate. That's a universal concept that is true of human nature in general regardless of what countries system somebody is operating in.

Do you think policeman, lawyers and judges are ensuring mental well being then?

They were the first ones which sprang to mind, but there are UK ones too, for example the recent cases of doctors offering gender based abortions.

Which is illegal if its based on gender alone and they, rather than the woman, are the ones responsible for doing that.

The difference is important.

Buffy I agree that preventing late abortions overrides a woman's bodily autonomy. What I am asking is where, on a moral scale, does that autonomy rank against a decision to kill a viable baby? Are we really saying that the restraint on that autonomy imposed by a ban on late abortions is more immoral than killing or that the restraint is so terrible a thing that it makes the moral difference between killing a viable baby before and after birth?

This is horrendous, unless there were very good medical reasons, your murdering a baby that would survive outside the womb.

Buffy, I think it shows that at a certain point the foetus' right to life outweighs the woman's choice to terminate that life. An equivalent situation simply does not exist for men because they can't be pregnant.

I suppose one way to deal with it is to give a woman the right to be induced and hand the baby over. That way she's not donating her body to support a life or continuing with a pregnancy she doesn't want. Why the insistence that the life of the foetus/baby is terminated