To ask pro-choice MNers to email your MPs? <this is not a request to vote on anything>

[EricNorthmansMistressOfPotions]

There is an article here about the proposed amendments to the health and social care bill which will force women to undergo 'independent' counselling before being allowed to choose to terminate a pregnancy. The assumption is that BPAS and the like have a financial investment in encouraging women to terminate and as such their counselling is biased. The stated goal is to reduce the number of terminations per year by forcing women to delay between seeking and receiving termination, and having to undergo additional counselling (political bias unknown, though easily guessed at) prior to the termination. ND hopes that woman will change their minds during this enforced extended waiting period.

If you think this is a shit idea you can email your MP by clicking this link

This is not a request to vote on anything at all

Ok this is really, really upsetting for me but I'll tell you this because I want you all to know that Nadine Dorries abortion story is fictional and quite frankly, it's vile of her to invent things like that.

They stop the heart of the baby before inducing labour. Then the mother is put on a drip to induce labour. The wonderful nurses held my hand when I gave birth. I could cry to think of how caring they were. They let me cuddle my baby for a bit, until I threw up with the emotion of it. Then they took the baby away, wrapped it in a blanket and took a picture of it next to a flower for me.

I'm in tears now remembering that.

How dare Nadine Dorries accuse those amazing women of being so cruel and make up such blatant lies. Horrible!

www.number10.gov.uk/contact-us/

www.labour.org.uk/contact

www.libdems.org.uk/contact.aspx

These are general contact pages, but the other pages in the site will give you details of ministers and shadow ministers. Plus if you look at the "they work for you" website it will give you details of all MPs.

I know it is a lie Michelle, no-one has an abortion or carries out one because they think it is no big deal or a bit of fun, and she is using her position to peddle untruths to gain support. I hoep you are ok.
You have to wonder what sort of a person is so blinkered in her view of the world that in her determination to smear abortion she accuses herself of taking part in child murder and does not seem to see this as a problem.When people write to their MPs etc about this I think we should put in the dailymail quote and ask them to explain what they think they are doing supporting this woman

Hugs michelle. You've been so strong and open with us all over the past couple of days, please don't let it get too upsetting for you. There's plenty here who will keep on the fight my love.

I'm ok thank you Kelly. This was years ago. I had another baby this year (finally!) and he's been born into a happy, safe family. I don't know if me or my first baby would even be alive now, that's how much danger we were in.

Dorries has never let facts get in the way of her opinions.

Thank you Wilson. I have to defend those nurses though. I don't know how they do it. Words can't describe my gratitude to them.

Kelly, I don't think doctors are 'allowed' to resuscitate babies born before 24 weeks so they aren't going to resuscitate an aborted baby. There was a very sad story in the paper recently about a mother who gave birth at 23 weeks and the baby was alive and breathing but the doctors wouldn't come and take him (I think it was a boy iirc) into the baby unit. The baby died in her arms quite a while later. I think it was written around the time they were considering reducing the time limit for abortions.

I can't help feeling that American politics would suit Dorries better - she comes across as badly as some of their more deranged Republicans, and is a similar combination of thick and dangerous.

Thank you for being brave enough to tell that, Michelle - not everybody knows it.

However, it should also be said that everyone participating in abortion knows that in the incredibly rare incidents of the foetus being born alive (this happened more often years ago, when dating wasn't as accurate) the rules are clear: the baby must be kept alive. At BPAS and Marie Stopes, all late abortions can only be carried out where there are facilities including an incubator that is ready to use.

I think there was a time when culturally (certainly within healthcare culture) it was quite acceptable to allow certain babies to die in the sluice room. My grandmother claims this happens to one of her babies, who she saw being carried off alive. Strangely (to my ears) she thinks this was the right thing to do, because the baby was 'not right'. Nowadays, it would be considered horrific. ONE of the reasons for that change of attitude was of course legalised abortion: babies with foetal abnormalities that may be terminated now, would back then have been 'taken care of' in the sluice room.

Please forgive me if my language has been clunky or insensitive. I'm trying to describe a change in attitudes to those babies, not to condone any of those attitudes.

Anyway, I think if it is true that Nadine Dorries killed a baby then she has some explaining to do. But of course it isn't true. She's picked up on an urban myth and using it to shock/disgust people into supporting her.

Dorries' story could be true if you look at this Times article:

here

Apologies, I dont think they can resuscitate babies born at 22 weeks. So presumably it would be the same for an aborted baby.

They rescuscitate babies who are capable of life, bumbleymummy.

If a baby was born at an abortion clinic still alive, all efforts would be made to keep it alive until it could be transferred to a NICU for specialist care. It would be up to a paediatrician trained in neonatal intensive care to decide on further treatment.

The Times article is interesting, but I think relates to NHS care. BPAS and Marie Stopes have to operate by different rules (more stringent ones in many ways). Also, as you would expect the doctors working at the abortion charities are committed to reproductive choice and experienced in these procedures. I think the worst possible scenario, from my perspective, would be to have a late abortion carried out by an NHS doctor who does very few, if any, who has limited experience and maybe conflicted feelings. Certainly, back in my day the abortion-related complication rates were far lower in the charities than in the NHS. Some of that was undoubtedly due to different caseloads, but it is also due to the fact that you get lower morbidities where clinical staff are highly experienced.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14745675

DC won't support ND

The Times article incorrectly states that UK women have abortion on demand up to 24 weeks which doesn't exactly fill me with confidence that they have the rest of their story straight.

Here's some facts on NDs proposals.

blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-cutting-through-the-rhetoric-on-abortion/7636

Even before 22 weeks Hester? If so then why was this woman's baby denied treatment? According to that story, that particular hospital had a policy that did not resuscitate before 24 weeks. I wonder if hospitals can actually make their own policies about these issues?

From the Times article:

"The Department of Health was alerted three months ago to the issue of babies surviving failed terminations. In August clinicians in Manchester published an analysis of 31 such babies born in northwest England between 1996 and 2001."

Bumble,
Dorries does not claim that no medical aid was to be given as you suggest, she is I belive claiming that it was to be actively destroyed. So either Dorries is lying, or as Hester says she has some serious explaining to do.

hester,
Even today if babies are born below a cut off date (I cannot remember the exact number of weeks) it is government policy that they be given only pallative care. However Dorris claims this happened three decades ago which would put it in the late seventies early eighties, certainly after your grandmother's time (i assume) and as I said to bumble I believe she said it was to be actively destroyed rather than not ared for. I think that the conservatives need to seriously questioning her, because she is either telling very serious lies to try to manipulate people or she was involved in something the police should be looking into in my opinion. Either of these things merits being kicked out of the party in my opinion.

I am pointedly ignoring anything BM has to say but I will make it known that it makes me feel ill that she so desperately wants Nadine Dorries to have been telling the truth.

Josephine - most of the UK does have abortion 'on demand' up to 24 weeks. In practice anyway.

Bumbley, Althought there are government policies there are not actual laws about when they can give more than pallative care. It is up to the staff involved to use their judgement. In many ways it is the same with adults if an adult has to have resuscitateion , heart massage etc it is up to the medical staff how long they do this for and when they decide enough is enough there is no law.

Actually Michelle, I know very little about Dorries but I had heard other stories of aborted babies being born alive which was why I linked to the Times article. You don't have to believe her personal story if you don't want to but it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

That's interesting Kelly. It's a bit scary though that if you go into very premature labour you baby's life could be determined by pretty much a postcode lottery. I wonder why the policies aren't actually more definite?

No it doesn't. The legal grounds for abortion are that it would cause lasting physical or emotional damage to the women and she must convince two doctors - neither of whom are legally required to disclose if they are anti-abortion which means some women are subjected to avoidable delays.

Moreover, once women pass the 12 week stage, availability of provision starts to rapidly decline and fewer and fewer doctors are prepared to sign off a termination for anything other than severe physical abnormality.

de·mand/diˈmand/Noun: An insistent and peremptory request, made as if by right.

It is not a right to have an abortion on demand in the UK. In Northern Ireland it is even more restricted. It is available on demand in much of Europe albeit for a shorter time period.

You may not like that some women can find supportive doctors easily but not all do and in any event, having to convince two other people doesn't meet the definition of 'demand'.

bumbley, I think I am right in saying that it is a clinical decision when to offer treatment. There may well be guidelines put in place by the RCOG or NICE or the hospital, but I doubt they could overrule an individual doctor's judgment on a particular baby.

Of course, there is a stage below which the presumption must be that the baby will not live, so even if it was born showing signs of life no treatment would be offered. I would guess 19 weeks would certainly fall into that category but I am not a doctor so this is just my guess. I can't remember at what stage of gestation the charities had to have the presumption of a possibility of life (with incubator ready, referral route to local hospital organised etc) - maybe 18 weeks? In an NHS hospital it's different because you have much easier access to NICU facilities, and less direct DH control.

When I worked at the charities, the DH had very, very tight control over everything. For example, they had to approve every single information leaflet we gave our clients, and sometimes knocked them back for very odd reasons.

So, as I understand it, the issue is that failed terminations are likely to be due to inexperienced or conflicted doctors not managing the termination process correctly. So it is largely an NHS rather than abortion charity issue. When babies are born alive, the presumption is that those below the age of viability will not be artificially kept alive but where they are borderline viability the decision rests with the doctor to reach a judgment on this case based on how well this baby is doing. In all cases, at whatever stage, a baby born alive after a failed termination should always be treated with care and dignity. So where keeping alive is not an option, good palliative care is provided.

I think there used to be a general attitude that there were circumstances in which it was ok to leave a baby to die in a sluice room. It was part of the same attitude that stillbirths and neonatal deaths were just a bit unfortunate but nothing to make a fuss over. And that stillborn babies didn't need to be handled with respect. And that newborn babies didn't need pain relief. Anti-abortionists have told me that legalised abortion has made us as a society more callous and less respectful towards unborn and newly born babies. I rather tend to think that we have become more respectful, and that is a very good thing.