TM will allow a debate on restricting abortion to cling on to power.

[catgirl1976]

AIBU to be disgusted? I'm reading that she will allow a UK debate on abortion limits to secure the DUP's support.

She's a disgrace. I don't care if you voted Tory or Labour or for Lord Buckethead, but surely any woman must feel appalled that their rights are up for sale to secure her (untenable anyway) position.

I think the process after the Tuesday talks between DUP and Tories are that assuming support is obtained (likely), the Tories put together a Queen Speech of proposed bill - Brexit and a few other things but not a huge number which they think will be passed by the Tories and DUP. Assuming that is approved (that there is enough Tory and DUP support) then the legislative programme begins in slimmed down form.

It is probably more likely than not that that is how it will proceed.

Its not just the DUP though, the last MORI poll showed that around a quarter of the population:

Asked if it should be made more difficult for women to obtain abortions

23% Agreed
7% Agreed very strongly
4% Agreed strongly
12% Agreed
23% Neither agreed nor disagreed
46% Disagreed
25% Disagreed
9% Disagreed strongly
12% Disagreed very strongly
6% Did not know
2% Preferred not to answer

Babies do now survive at 22 weeks and ending the life of your own viable healthy child isn't something that I think should happen in a civilised society. Of course, it is different if the child or mother has severe health problems.

DUP aren't ideal at all, but they are much, much better than having JC bankrupt the country.

I hear what you're saying underneath. I do find the idea of late abortion and abortion in general uncomfortable but the older I get the more I believe that abortion on demand is the only way. Without abortion on demand women cannot have full control of their own bodies and that makes me more uncomfortable than abortion. I don't think any woman has an abortion lightly or on a whim. Even if the pregnancy is unwanted and unplanned I imagine the decision is made after a lot of thought.

Babies do now survive at 22 weeks and ending the life of your own viable healthy child isn't something that I think should happen in a civilised society.
An extremely tiny percentage survive at 22 weeks. It is still considered unlikely. Again I ask, what kind of life would these unwanted babies have? Why is it better to force them to exist?

The vast majority of babies born at 22 weeks will not survive; those that do are likely to have significant long term difficulties.

If a parent has a live birth at 22 weeks and medics feel it is right and worthwhile (and by worthwhile, I mean they feel there is a decent likelihood of a favourable outcome) to give life support and medical care, then it should happen.

That should not mean that a woman who is 22 weeks pregnant and prefers an abortion should be prevented from having one.

underneath in your civilised society you would force women to be pregnant and give birth, with all the risks to their physical and mental health that involves. You would force them to do this with no regard for their wishes or circumstances whatsoever. You would then expect them to either give up the child for adoption, with all the issues that entails. Or care for the child themselves, a child that they didn't want, with all the issues that entails. How is that civilised?

ryan and beauty it's not whether the trust resuscitates pre 24 weeks it's more that they aren't counted as a person should they be stillborn. And that's tied up in the termination law as they are not defined as a person - hence you can't murder a non person.
And if they aren't a person they can't get a death cert or birth cert.

I'd like the law to be rewritten, to account for this. 24 weeks was chosen as it was assumed that it was the age of viability of a normal foetus at the time.

We actually asked the hospital not to resuscitate in the event but my DD didn't actually need resuscitating.

What would you change it to Head? A birth/death certificate for any miscarriage or loss? 24 weeks is still considered the point of probable viability. That doesn't mean babies born before won't survive - but it's very unlikely.

But it's not the abortion law that dictates that at all, it's the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, later amended by the Stillbirth Definition Act 1992, in England (there are different amendments in Scotland and NI I think).

As soon as a baby is born alive it is a person, even if it's very premature and unwell. The issue then is about whether they can survive and whether medical treatment is going to prolong pain but not improve the chances of living.

The problem with requiring birth and death certificates is that they have to paid for, they require a trip to a register office, they require admin

Some people will want a memento which is why lots of (most?) hospitals will give you something that looks very much like a birth certificate, but isn't legally one.

But lowering the point at which certificates are issued drags a lot more people into an admin job they probably don't want to have to do, and also creates questions around the point at which maternity pay starts etc

I don't know of many people who had losses in the early 20 week point who feel very strongly about this. Certainly we were very glad to be a few days shy of the point at which we would be required to go and do the admin

are you all seriously believing that a sentence spoken by an MP who is not a minister (or even the PM) who had the same beliefs in 2008 is enough to hope TM will F* off when the conservative party were elected by the population with over 50 more seats than labour (led by JC) - and I thought mumsnet had sensible thinking people on it.

But lowering the point at which certificates are issued drags a lot more people into an admin job they probably don't want to have to do
After losing our daughter at 16 weeks sorting the funeral was hard enough, I would not have wanted the admin of a death certificate.

OP the DUP have ten votes. Even if they want to make abortion completely illegal, they can't accomplish it with their ten votes. There are over six hundred MPs in parliament and I don't see 10 of them being able to pass anything that the other six hundred don't want to. Surely abortion is the type of issue that every MP gets to vote how they like, without having to toe the party line. For this reason, I can't really see the concern re having a debate.

I don't actually see any option open to TM other than to cosy up to DUP. Not that I support her but in her position this is the best option.

As an aside I think I would like to see babies who pass away at less than 24 weeks gestation get a birth certificate and therefore acknowledgement that they were a person. I don't know from where (eg 16/20 weeks?). But I don't think the DUP are particularly stressed about that (?)

Also re the erosion of women's rights, the leader of DUP is actually a woman. As is TM. It seems to be more of a religious issue (?). Anyway I do not think that so few MPs will be able to change our current laws.

DUP will be a moderating influence on a hard Brexit so not all bad.

ollie, no I don't think that. I do find it alarming how easily this Conservative MP chucked the idea of debating the abortion law into the mix. As if that should be a bargaining chip. I wish that TM had come out and said that having a debate on this would not be part of any deal struck.

The fact that the leader of the DUP is a woman doesn't mean that as a party their policies are at odds with women's rights. Access to legal abortion is a women's right, imo.

"Also re the erosion of women's rights, the leader of DUP is actually a woman"

So where the nuns who ran the Magdelene laundries.

Its perfectly possible for a woman to be a misogynist you know.

It makes me actually feel quite sick reading that some people would rather a woman was forced to stay pregnant. I wish there was a way for parents who lose a baby within the brackets for abortion, to have a birth and or death certificate. I just don't see how that is possible. To be honest when my baby was in hospital and born after term and was likely to die, when I was looking into a funeral etc for if we lost her, I actually found it harder to then also think about a death certificate. If I lost a child at say 20 weeks, I don't know if I could handle having to deal with a birth and death certificate at the same time. I would want to bury my baby though, would that be possible? Does anyone know if you can bury a baby born before 24 weeks? I'm near sure you need a death certificate to bury someone so I'm now thinking you can't.

It's awful and I think it would hurt if I was in that situation, but I worry that changing laws would infringe on abortion laws because to get a birth certificate it would mean seeing the baby as a person which would mean it couldn't be aborted?

Yes, you can bury a baby without a birth/death certificate. My DD is in a lovely children's cemetery.
I would support it as a voluntary thing but not as a requirement.

The death certificate that was.

Lasagna I had a previous loss at 18 weeks no death certificate but was offered either cremation or burial. I've heard conflicting stories so it might vary by hospital trust. I got photos and hand/feet print as well.

If you have a late loss, the hospital will give you something that looks very like a birth certificate so you have something to mark their existence
But obviously it isn't an official document so you can't use it to claim maternity benefits etc

It is a nice touch without having to go through making and then sitting through an appointment with a registrar to formally register the birth and death, plus pay the fee plus deal with all the happy parents there to register their living babies

You can't have a non-compulsory registration system where parents can chose to officially register a miscarriage as a birth if they want. It wouldn't work on so many levels

That's so lovely to hear that they can be buried/cremated. The thing the hospital gives sounds lovely as well. That's reassured me a bit. You never know, just in case.

My mother lost a baby in a late miscarried - I think it was 20 weeks. No death cert which is probably right but she certainly found it a horrible process and then her last baby died at 21 days - full term plus 21 days and she did have a death certificate _ I still have a copy of it and burial and a little religious service.

English abortion law is so emotive for so many people I suspect we are better off just leaving it as it stands as it 's fairly workable. We have very very few late abortions so they are fairly irrelevant and you can have one in some cases eg disability.

I accept not everyone believes being viable outside the womb should be the test for whether or when a baby becomes a person. Babies at birth are still very helpless too. It's fairly arbitrary for non disabled babies to have that 24 week limit.

Curious about something catholics don't believe in cremation I know they do, my mother a catholic had one, but I think they tend to get buried, I think it may be a catholic belief. So how does it work for Catholics having a miscarriage below the limit for burial? Catholic believe a baby is baby from conception and the child becomes before a baby even if she can die having the child. Just curious?

Just checked staunch catholic believe in resurrection, so don't like to be creamated. Can you challenge cremation of miscarriage on religious ground?