Abortion News
6th July 2007
The Royal College of Nursing is to ask its students if they would be willing to perform unsupervised abortions.
Last week the British Medical Association at its annual conference voted against a motion to support the principle of nurses performing terminations within the first three months.
One of the motion's supporters, gynaecologist Kate Guthrie said:
“I see absolutely no reason why a nurse or midwife couldn’t train to perform early surgical procedures.”
She added that nurses and midwives are trusted to deliver babies unsupervised.
Despite the defeat the RCN is pressing ahead with a two-month consultation exercise.
There is already a scheme in place, ‘medical abortions’ where nurses give two tablets to a woman in the first trimester that cause her to abort.
One of the auxiliary bishops of Westminster and co-ordinator of the Catholic Church’s recent national Day for Life, Bernard Longley condemned the motion:
“It is always wrong to end the life of a child, of a human being from conception onwards.”
However, he conceded that only where the health of the mother was concerned a termination was acceptable, but that this was not abortion.
(Click below to listen to Bishop Bernard Longley on the Catholic Church’s ‘double effect’ rule and how it applies to terminations)
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27th June 2007
The British Medical Association has voted to support changes in abortion law.
At its annual conference in Torquay the BMA approved a motion that would require only one doctor to consent to an abortion instead of two.
It also rejected a motion to allow nurses to provide terminations unsupervised.
The ProLife Alliance’s communications director Julia Millington condemned the BMA: “The vote flies in the face of medical opinion on the issue.”
(Click below to listen to Julia Millington on why the ProLife Alliance opposes abortion in cases of rape)
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However her opposite number at Marie Stopes International, Tony Kerridge, approved of the decision to reform the consent rule: “We clearly welcome that, it’s an antiquated system.”
But he added that he was: “not overly shocked or surprised” that the BMA had rejected the “paramedicisation” of the procedure.
The Royal College of Nursing’ executive director for service delivery, Janet Davis, said in a statement: “Nurses hold a wide range of views on abortion and we know that some of our members working in the field are interested in looking at how to extend their roles to support services for women seeking first trimester abortions.”
Despite the vote on consent the Department of Health said it has no plans to alter current legislation.
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21st June 2007
The time limit for abortion is being debated in Parliament for the first time in a generation.
The 24 week limit was decided in 1990 and MPs are looking into whether sufficient medical advances have been made in the care of premature babies’ to reduce it.
Labour MP for Crawley, Laura Moffatt said: “Often the sorts of tests that have to take place to tell if a foetus is damaged can’t go on until after 20 weeks of pregnancy.”
The abortion figures for 2006 published this week showed a four percent increase in terminations taking the number to 193,700.
One per cent of abortions are late term and usually take place because of severe disability.
The director of Antenatal Results and Choices (ARC), which provides counselling for women carrying a damaged foetus, Jane Fisher said: “The law in terms of the current time limit should stay as it is because if it were lowered it would make the people we deal with have more pressure on them and have less time to make very difficult decisions.”
(Click below to listen to Jane Fisher on reasons for late term abortions)
However, pro-life advocate Josephine Quintavalle said: “You’re making a statement that a disabled baby can be aborted up to birth but a healthy baby can only be aborted up to 24 weeks and you want to try telling that to disabled people.”
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Anne Widdecombe doesn't think the current debate will lead to the end of abortion.
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14th June 2007
Nurses may have to perform abortions in Britain because there aren’t enough doctors willing to do it.
The British Medical Association will debate a motion at its annual conference in Torquay on June 28 over whether nurses and midwives should provide terminations.
Pro-life doctor and University of London lecturer, Trevor Stammers described the BMA’s motion as: “…a reflection on of their desperation about the number of doctors who don’t want to be involved.”
A recent survey by medical magazine Pulse says that one-in-four GP’s refuse to consent to abortions or refer women to doctors who will.
The founder of the pro-life pressure group CORE (Comment on Reproductive Ethics), Josephine Quintavalle said: “I think the answer is to find out why women are having abortions and try to bring the numbers down, not suggest that because doctors don’t want to do them we’ll get anybody else we can find to do them.”
Pulse’s survey was dismissed by the Royal College of General Practitioners as being unrepresentative.
The Chair of the Royal College, Professor Mayur Lakhani said in a statement that: “…a strict code of professional practice exists and it would be unacceptable if a doctor’s personal beliefs prevented a patient getting the necessary clinical treatment.
(Click below to listen to Tony Kerridge from Marie Stopes International on the decreasing number of doctors)
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(Click below to listen to Josephine Quintavalle of CORE)