Monday, 15 October 2007

Should the 24 week Abortion limit be reduced to 20 weeks?

The House of Commons science and technology committee are to look into reducing the 24 week Abortion limit to 20 weeks. Speaking on Radio 4's Today Programme, Professor Stuart Campbell, former professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at King’s College London said:

"It (the Abortion limit) should be reduced to 20 weeks. Foetuses can survive; even at 23 weeks a large American study shows over 60 per cent of babies survive. And even at 22 weeks there is a reasonable survival rate; admittedly many of these babies are handicapped. But the simple fact is that with medical advances babies between 20 and 24 weeks can survive."

I would also support this change. In my opinion it is ridiculous that you can have one Doctor trying to save premature babies at 20 weeks, while another Doctor is aborting them at 24 weeks in the next room. If life is now viable at 20 weeks, then that should be the limit.


2 comments:

Nich Starling said...

Life is NOT viable at 20 weeks. 99.9% of medical opinion is behind that. At 23 weeks, there have been a tiny % of babies who live, but usually with severe medical problems for the rest of their lives.

However, I agree with cutting the limit to 20 weeks but on the strict proviso that obastacles to getting terminations prior to 20 weeks are removed. The 24 week limit seems to be used because the NHS and certain doctors make people wait so long they go over 20 weeks.

Nich Starling said...

I should add that in an ideal world terminations could be reduced below 20 weeks so procedures become less invasive and traumatic, but this would require an enormous investment in NHS facilities and time which I doubt the government could afford.