New restrictions on right to terminate for medical reasons

[Dandelionzebra]

Has anyone seen the article in the times saying an amendment to restrict the right to terminate a pregnancy for medical reasons is likely to be snuck in as an amendment to the criminal justice bill?

I couldn’t work out from the article whether the amendment had actually been tabled yet or was just expected to be tabled shortly.

The article was dressing it up as a disability equality issue for Down’s syndrome but gave no info about how it would actually work in practice (e.g. what about co-occurring conditions could they still mean Tfmr was available? What about if complications made it likely that the fetus with Down syndrome was incompatible with life, what about pregnancies with multiples where at certain advanced gestations it is decided to delay a termination to minimise risk to the other fetus).

Has anyone seen a response for bpas or any other groups? I can’t believe we’re still having to have the argument that late stage Tfmr is rare, usually heartbreaking for those involved but necessary.

Looking at the latest notices of amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill on Parliament’s website it looks like he still hasn’t actually tabled the amendment - my guess is that this is a very deliberate choice to give women’s groups less time to pick apart obvious technical problems with the drafting of the proposals.

Also I suspect he’s trying to drum up some support in the absence of concrete drafting as once you try to put in any concrete drafting it will become quickly obvious how difficult it is to deal with corner cases of concurrent conditions etc.

https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3511/publications the amendment should appear here in the amendment paper tab in the publications section of the parliament page on the Bill once he has laid it if anyone else wants to follow the progress of this and see the precise details of what is being proposed

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68617513.amp from BBC Rishi has declined to officially back the amendment and said that it will be a vote of conscience when the amendment comes to be debated (which is less weak than I thought he might be on this) haven’t watched the debate though as I’ve been at work

Just because you chose to continue your pregnancy, it doesn't mean other women should have that choice forced on them.

I was born in 1955. My mum swore that a baby on her ward died because the doctor smothered it in mercy. Which is awful, or is it? I was blessed with kids that had no medical issues - neither physical nor mental - and I count my lucky blessings. I do not know how we would have coped with disability, and if anything had come up pre birth there is no way question I would have aborted and tried again. But......I was quite young, and had no trouble conceiving. A

Sorry posted too soon. You must do what's right for you. And in the long term, I hope very much that your decision works out.

To be fair, 24 weeks is pretty late! It’s a proper baby that could survive outside the womb. You can’t about a healthy child that late for obvious reasons. I don’t see why having downs makes it ok to abort up until birth when there is no risk to the mother.
Im not saying no in general, I just think 24 weeks is pretty reasonable.

Different argument but in child abuse victims, pregnancy is usually discovered very late sometimes third trimester. That is my reason for supporting late term abortion. Even though I think it's awful, it's preferable to not having it.

Saying '24 weeks is reasonable' is assuming that pregnancy is always in reasonable circumstances.

Are you personally planning on caring for all these children born with DS? Or funding their care?

It's not that late. My 20 week scan with DD1 was done at 20+6, but she was in an awkward position and wouldn't move so they had to scan me again, which could only be rescheduled for a week later, at 21+6. If something had been found, I'd have wanted another scan to confirm, maybe tests (depending on what the issue was, I don't know), an appointment with someone who knew what they were talking about, plus time to consider all the implications. That's tight to do by 24 weeks if the 20 week scan is done at 20 weeks on the dot. Mine wasn't done until 2 weeks after. If there had been a problem, I'd almost certainly have been over 24 weeks before I was able to make any kind of informed and considered decision. And informed and considered decisions are what women should be given every opportunity to make.

Pretty horrified at the number of posters using the nonsensical forced birther propaganda term "late term abortion." No such thing exists. Late term would be 41 weeks plus....!

Utter bullshit. The consultants who supported me through my late tfmr made it quite clear that these conditions by themselves were absolutely not reason for termination after the 24 week cut off. However, a club foot, for example may be one of several anomalies that indicate a more significant life limiting condition that certainly would open the door for a tfmr to be offered.

The process by which a termination is offered after 24 weeks is a careful one. Multiple doctors review each case and decide as a group what options are available. I have no doubt ethics and what is right given uk law is very high on the consideration list.

Your comment is an insult to the families that have to go through this horrendous experience. No one is terminating after 24 weeks for completely treatable club foot.

24 weeks is pretty late! It’s a proper baby that could survive outside the womb

This is a bit misleading. A baby born at 24 weeks will need intense medical assistance to survive, spend months in NICU, will have a high % risk of dying despite all that intervention and a very high % risk of lifelong disability or medical complications. It is amazing that 24 weekers can now survive, and even in a minority of cases can have no major complications, but that shouldn’t delude us into believing that 24 weeks is in any way similar to full term.

I doubt the incoming labour government would do that. Its a very right wring policy pro life. Policy

If that's directed at me, 'horrified' seems a bit of an over-reaction given I'm supportive of post-24 week abortion.

It was imprecise language that's all.

I have a disabled child. I love him. But fuck me my life is hard. There is no support services, in fact there is a lot of judgement. Special schools are on their knees. NHS on its knees.y life is ruined. My partner couldn't cope with it so he left. Ive lost my ability to work and I'm a carer and there are no schools currently able to keep my child safe. I begged for him to go into care because it's ruining the lives of my other children- that was refused because I'm not hurting my child they have no role. So I was forced to say I'm having a breakdown and I am very close to hurting my child. Can you imagine being forced into a position where this is how you feel? Then imagine having to actually voice such a shameful thought and have that recorded in a permanent record?! This got me a 2 mornings of a carer each week so I can take other kids out/have a shower etc. I'm only paying the interest on my mortgage, I'm not paying into a pension, when my child is 25 he can go live in supported housing if he's still not independent and then I loose all benefits and don't have recent work experience and have my mortgage to deal with knowing I won't have enough years working left to pay it off. fuck knows what's going to happen to me.

I cost the tax payer a lot of money with the carer, social worker, and UC. Disability benefits. The cost to the NHS. Special school places that are saying no to my child cost £60k a year. He's being funded to have a home tutor.

I love my son. He is here now so I can't say I wish I had aborted. I didn't know he was disabled like this before he was born anyway. But my advice to people is do you k ie the reality of raising a disabled child and could you do that alone? I know of so many men who just left their wife/gf when the reality of raising the child hit home. I love my son so if I could go back in time I would still keep him. But if I didn't already love him no fucking way would I do this to my other children again.

I will support late term termination for medical reasons till my dying breath. In fact I support late term termination full stop because I was pregnant when my ex fucked off. Nothing wrong with baby and again I love him and now he's here I will do all he needs. But I was talked into this baby by partner and we were supposed to be doing it together. Women should never be forced to have our life's ruined when men can just swan off.

@PurpleBugz
Thank you for writing that.
And I'm so sorry that life is like that for you.
(I wish abortion was just considered a random medical procedure, rather than any thoughts about morals and babies, in more cultures, like mine - ex communist country, one of the worse ones where religion really took it in the neck.)

I’ve had another look at the parliament website this evening and the 21st March amendment paper still isn’t showing his amendment as tabled yet - so still no way to know/critique how it’s actually supposed to work…

I did however see that Fox has also put his name to another amendment (NC15) to change the standard abortion time limits from 24 to 22 weeks. (This amendment seems to come up every single year - so I’m not so worried about it actually happening) - but supporting this proposal to reduce the normal time limit makes even more of a nonsense of restricting Tfmr to the normal time limit - given that many women don’t even get their anatomy scan until 22 weeks where soft markers might be identified. This would leave no chance for follow up amniocentesis, chance to discuss with a specialists and (also importantly) a reasonable opportunity to mentally process the diagnosis and discuss it with their partner/support network before coming to a decision about what they feel is the right choice for them and their family.

It just goes to show the absolute ignorance about women’s health (or equally likely just an extreme lack of care).

Thanks for sharing your experience Rooma - my Tfmr was at an earlier stage but still one of the most horrific experiences I’ve ever been through (though much less horrific than my only other alternative of carrying a baby to term knowing they’d either be stillborn or die in my arms within hours of their birth). I can only imagine how hard it was to go through at a later gestation.

Like you I’m throughly sick of people who haven’t the faintest idea what they’re talking about making out women undergo Tfmr on a whim or because they just can’t be bothered to parent.

For all the comments saying 24 weeks is reasonable- it is, of course, in most cases. But not all, which is why a tfmr is a medical decision between a woman and her doctor.

There are situations where doctors recommend to wait- the twin situation being the one I experienced where the patient is recommended to delay tfmr in case it causes spontaneous labour. My tfmr was at 28 weeks, 3-4 weeks sooner than docs would have liked but necessary because the medical condition the baby had was putting me at extreme risk of early labour anyway. We'd made the decision to terminate 2 weeks earlier.

There's other women I've connected with who haven't even had their diagnosis till after scans at 28-30 weeks

Stop assuming that if the law covers typical pregnancies/ your pregnancies that will be okay.

And what about the person providing that care, usually the mother, for the rest of HER life. What about the quality of her life? Ignorant post.

I discovered at my 20 week scan that my dates were wrong and I was actually 24 weeks pregnant.

Exactly.

Many people with DS end up in institutional care as adults. That's not to say that their lives can't have value and enjoyment, of course, but I doubt most of us would want to spend decades in a care home. And people with DS are heart-breaking vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.

There is a reason why campaigns to change the cut-off for termination focus on gorgeous, smiling small children and on young adults with only minor cognitive impairment. The reality for many adults with DS is much sadder.

What I found interesting is the reasoning for this being that it will “reduce discrimination towards those that are in society” facing such disability.

I have been hearing this argument more recently.

On a second note it’s interesting that it’s a “sir” heading this campaign.

On a second note it’s interesting that it’s a “sir” heading this campaign.

A Catholic Sir with a history of getting in bed with US right wingers (see his 2022 all expenses paid trip to a Heritage Foundation conference in the US, where thanks was given for the "fall" of Roe v Wade).
If anyone thinks his interest in Don't Screen is Out is about ensuring that people with DS are treated decently in our society through their lives then they must be dim.