Reform and abortion

[Craftymam]

Just a public service announcement as I missed this last week and find it quite shocking that coverage was so low.

Nigel Farage has said he wants to ‘open a new discussion’ on abortion rights.

Considering everything that’s gone on in America, the rise in popularity of reform and this alleged 100 Million donation from Elon musk; I felt I had to bring this to everyone’s attention.

Some women will do if the get their rights to abort until the birth date

You can't even consider the possibility of lowering it - every woman would need to be guaranteed a routine fetal anomaly scan (the one frequently termed the 20 week scan - clue's in the nickname, really) by 18 weeks, referral and appointment for counselling and amniocentesis/other scans and investigations at a specialist centre, reporting on the results completed and a MDM held to discuss the findings AND had time to adjust to the news before being guaranteed theatre time and free overnight childcare for existing children within less than nine working days of the original scan appointment.

Because Farron has never said he wants to change the law.
Farage probably would if he ever got the chance. He is like the crazy people in the USA and Trump is one of his heroes

That statement requires evidence. At present the evidence suggest the exact opposite. You are worrying about things that will never happen - clearly you do not trust women to make good decisions. There's a word, starts with M, that describes this position.

This. 1000 times this. Unless you can guarantee every single woman timely access to all scans and follow-up diagnostics, counselling and support, you can't lower the limit.

You won't have evidence until the law not change

Are they not talking about termination for non medical reasons there?

The data on late term abortions is crystal clear: the vast, vast majority of terminations after 20 weeks are for medical reasons. There is absolutely no reason to believe that would change if the limit were raised (which by the way I do not think necessary) unless you don't trust women to make sound decisions and have a moral compass. And if that is how you feel, that is called misogyny.

A friend of mine had her 20 week scan at 22 weeks, due to lack of appointments available. Her baby had a deformed head and noone was sure how much brain tissue there was. She got a referral for further testing, which took her over the 24 week mark. I cannot remember the condition, but it was clear her baby would be profoundly disabled.

She lives in Ireland, and this was pre legalised abortion. She contacted abortion providers in the UK. They said she could access a termination through the health service, not through them as it was over 24 weeks. She was not resident here and didn't know how to go about getting a referral to a feotal medical unit. Or if it was possible for non residents.

There were a few weeks of casting her net around, while being utterly traumatised. At 28 weeks, the baby was born. He is 14 with the mental age of a baby. He cannot walk, talk and is very difficult for her to manage. Her husband left her with two other children and this boy, who she loves, but has ruined her life. She has not enough help, no real time for her other two children, feels constantly guilty and struggles so much.

I know that it would not have happened if she lived in the UK at the time, but it really open my eyes to the necessity of easily accessible terminations. Very, very few are after 24 weeks and they are due to medical conditions.

From this and previous posts, Julia34 does not seem to be a person with English as a first language. So why is anyone engaging with this poster? This person clearly has little to do with Reform UK or the rights of UK women.

That’s never going to happen.

There's no case to be made for lowering that limit though. @FOJN posted the data a few pages back. And if you tinker with the law as it stands there will be unintended consequences. Leave well enough alone and focus on improving the reasons why women have abortions instead: housing, DV, childcare, all of that.

But the problem there is that no one can agree on what is defined as quality of life and disability, as can clearly been seen from this thread. So if you have different thresholds, someone other than the mother is getting to determine this.

If that was for medical reasons then there is no need to fight for abortion rights until late pregnacy, because NOW women have rights too terminate if their lives are in danger or their babies are very sick.

I'm not advocating for lowering the limit but I think that when you are responding to a point someone has made it's important to be clear about what point they are making.

Any discussion about lowering the 24 week limit should be centred around when is the appropriate cut off point for terminating a healthy pregnancy, because that's what the 24 week limit applies to. Argue against lowering the limit all you like, but talking about anomalies which may only be picked up at the 20 week scan isn't relevant, because the 24 week limit doesn't apply in those cases.

I cannot believe that anyone who has ever been pregnant would write this.

You cannot have a late term abortion on a whim. The only abortions taking place after 24 weeks are those that meet the criteria for ground E but are delayed for reasons already mentioned.

That is true wherever you make the cut off point though. In most of Europe the cut off point is far earlier than 24 weeks.

Agreed up to a point, but as I have mentioned before, viability has not improved to the point where lowering the limit is justified - 70% of 22 weekers still die, and of the 30% that survive, a substantial number will have serious lifelong disabilities. Until that changes, we leave it alone. Mother Nature has limits.

Secondly, the creeping approach of lowering limits and tinkering in the margins is all about ultimately banning abortion. It would be foolish to think otherwise. We shouldn't allow the creeping erosion of abortion rights to happen in the UK.

Then they is no need to change the law then about abortion and yes sons women even pregnant one can be psychopatic

Some women *

I remember seeing a thread on here where the OP was clearly in great emotional distress and paralysed with indecision about whether to have an abortion or not. As the thread progressed it emerged that she was close to the 24 week limit. Posters who, earlier in the thread, had been encouraging her to get it done as quickly as possible, starting changing their minds and telling her she shouldn't terminate a healthy pregnancy at that stage. I don't remember what the outcome was but it did make me wonder whether some women end up having traumatic second trimester abortions because they keep thinking they have more time to decide. I hope she is doing OK now, whatever she decided to do.

I broadly agree with this. If I were writing the abortion laws for a new country I would probably put the limit earlier than 24 weeks if I'm honest, but I think that women terminating healthy pregnancies at such a late stage is vanishingly rare and as you say, tinkering with women's existing rights is the thin end of the wedge.

Exactly if there is now in UK law that allow women to terminate late pregnancy ONLY if it is risk for women life or baby is deformed badly then WHY made this rights for ALL women to have abortion in late stage pregnacy?. You know why? Because now they know it will be no legal to abort babies late in pregnacy if both mom and baby healthy so they want push for abortion law just to get the legal way to be able to abort whatever risk or non risk pregnancy. Women got already rights to abort late pregnacy if both them and babies at risk

If you look at the post cut off exemptions that is not altogether the case for most countries.

I agree that there is no need to change the law in the UK and I don't support legislating for termination up to birth without medical reason simply because you don't need to legislate for something that won't happen. There is also no need to change the legislation to reduce the limit. The law is fine as it stands.

Please can you stop referring to women who are mentally ill and want to abort because of it as 'psychopathic'? It's horribly stigmatising. Women can and do develop postnatal and antenatal psychosis, but they deserve sympathy and support, not stigma.