Nigel Farage on abortions- slippery slope?

[Ph2028]

Following the speech, Farage was also asked about his view on abortion limits. He replied that he was pro-choice but that it was "utterly ludicrous" for abortion to be allowed up to 24 weeks, when a hospital would "move heaven and earth" to help a baby born at 22 weeks survive.

Aibu to think it may be a slippery slope to reducing the number of weeks until it is effectively banned...

Anyway it's a bit of a non issue on Nigel's part given nearly 94% of reported abortions happen before two and a half months of pregnancy.so very few abortions happen at 24 weeks.

Now i remember why I requested a tubal ligation when I was pregnant with first baby as I didn't want anymore in any circumstances. It was predictably denied so dh got a vasectomy instead.

@Menopausalsourpuss You are free to not have abortions if you don't/didn't want them. But we have good, sensible abortion laws on this country and thankfully we are not in the thrall of religion in the same way the US is, so we need to fight against any attempt to reduced women's autonomy.

Nigel Farage doesn't give a shit about abortions. He's just making noise about them because he's following the US far right, and is no doubt getting paid for it.

You ‘very much felt like a baby from very early on’?

I’ll assume that’s a typo. Probably best leaving the mumsnet ‘earned’ media until you’ve had your coffee.

I believe it’s very much to do with this. Farage is a massive grifter and will accept money from pretty much anyone. Evangelical Christians have lots of money so it stands to reason he will start saying lots of things they want to hear.

it amazes me that anyone would ever give Farage any benefit of any doubt. He’s literally only ever out for himself and no one else.

I often think that when people start spouting off it’s a good idea to have a look at the statistics. The vast majority of abortions are carried out before 12 weeks. For later stage abortions they are generally done under ground E which is due to Fetal abnormality.

Women aren’t waiting to have late stage abortions for fun. Data shows with improved access to abortion medication, abortions occur earlier.

Women can have an abortion after 24 weeks due to fetal abnormality. Several hundred of these are performed every year. In the absence of improved diagnostics and earlier testing later abortions will continue to be necessary.

I believe changing the abortion limit from 24 to 20 weeks would have little impact on the number of abortions carried out and at what stage assuming the medical exemption continued. It’s just another wanky sound bite. There isn’t a problem here that needs to be solved, except perhaps better maternal care and diagnostics to help women make informed choices earlier but that would cost £££ and be much less headline worthy.

Anyone having an abortion at 24 weeks isn't doing it because they've decided they don't want to have a baby any more. It's likely they've had a devastating diagnosis which means the baby is profoundly disabled and will not survive anyway.

this is what scares me - we dont have good sensible abortion laws in this country. We actually have quite draconian laws that we have all just sidestepped for a long time, and that's why its scary to have a political party put pressure on.
Our laws in relation to abortion are actually worse than the US if we enact them in a draconian/to the letter way

"It still shocks many people to realise that in 2025 abortion is not actually legal for most of the UK. Only in Northern Ireland do women have a right to an abortion. Everywhere else they are exempted from prosecution if it is determined they have met certain access conditions"

..you exercised your Female bodily autonomy by having your children at term, why would you then try to limit other women’s autonomy to make decisions about what happens to their body?

Feminism is about giving women the right to choose what happens to them. I would hazard a guess that more women are coerced into getting pregnant, than are coerced into Abortion.

Im in NI, weve only just "won" our right to abortion.

I met a lady a few weeks ago who was 23 weeks pregnant, she has not had ANY NHS scans yet. She paid privately for one at 16 weeks due to NHS backlogs.

But no abnormalities scan done yet.

There is a really interesting podcast on abortion and the how it became the interest of American "Christian" groups by Jon Robson. Things Fell Apart
Ep 1 1000 dolls.

Also, this has pissed me off.

Women being co-orced into abortions is, as you say, awful, and anti-feminist. But when women are forced into having an unwanted child, that’s not only anti-feminist, but also brings a child into the equation that collectively we need to feed, house, raise, find a job for, have collective conversations about society etc etc.

Ive no doubt at all you’re a troll or being paid to comment, but to me it’s beyond this ridiculous right wing shit atm. I don’t think any of you have done the maths on it. Do you all seriously think normal people will buy what you’re saying, once they have thought about it for a few moments?

just annoys me.

So very very few abortions happen at 24 weeks.

Farridge is an opportunistic rat, so commenting on this now makes sense given the disturbing movement in the US to remove as many rights and freedoms from women as possible.

No, it is not a slippery slope, nobody casually opts for an abortion, let alone a late one.

I really loathe men commenting on any of it, particularly the likes of that grifting odious toad.

Nigel farage isn’t giving his thoughts. Religious organisations in US is big money and backing - if he can promote their thoughts then he wins favour and that brings with it money/funding

Yanbu. We de-polititicised abortion years ago for a good reason, women's health care should be in the hands of the health service to advise on with the vest interests of women in mind, and nothing else. Farage, and anyone political should have no input on it. Look what's happened in the US. Hands up who wants politicians deciding what's best for women's reproductive health?

There is precedent though in 1990 it went from 28 weeks to 24 weeks as viability had changed due to improvements in the way we care for very premature babies.

It didn’t reduce the numbers of late term abortions as these continued to be carried out under a category (fetal abnormality) E exmption.

THIS!! its not an accident that Farage hasnt given a single shit about abortion until his financial backers are now asking for it
They aren't stupid though - the UK has the least progressive abortion laws in the western world, its not an accident that recent guidance has been targeted to this or that there has been a measurable uptick in women being investigated via these draconian laws

A couple of points here. “The left”? Are you saying that giving women bodily autonomy is restricted to the left? And “extreme cases”? You don’t think focussing on the tiny minority of late term abortions is “quoting extreme cases”?
Also I was on that other thread. One study said that a very few women felt coerced into abortion. That is about coercion-they will be being coerced into other things too. So making sure that there is non judgmental support and education is key.
The study didn’t, for obvious reasons, investigate the number of women coerced into NOT having an abortion.

I think he’s right. Abortion pills by post have been a disaster and are leading to all the late term scandals we’re now seeing, and the term limit is too long.

I'm anti-abortion anyway, but I honestly can't understand why people wouldn't be happy to see the limit lowered from 24 weeks.

It’s his opinion, but sadly I agree it’s very late to have an abortion at 24 weeks and it’s a fully formed baby at this point.

Oh be real - this is less than 1% of abortions and only ever for life limiting disabilities. Over 95% of all abortions happen in the first 12 weeks.

Because the alternative is dam right fucking cruel in 99% if cases

I agree. I would imagine that the majority of terminations at such a late stage would be for medical reasons following a diagnosis of a disability in utero.

I think that abortion should be decriminalised like it was for Northern Ireland in 2019.

Farage is very much aligned to Trump's way of thinking and if he ever came to power, this would be a slippery slope possibly leading to lowering the limit even further or banning it altogether.

What's the alternative? Delivering the fully formed baby via a C section.

There are some awful people in UK politics taking money from evangelical fundamentalist Christian groups to further a fundamentalist agenda

and i will fight will all i have to resist it

So you'd be happy to lower it to 12 weeks?

Why are you anti-abortion?

I remember on another thread you claimed to be anti-vaccination.

I am genuinely curious to know if religion is driving these positions.

Edit for @ThejoyofNC