Rebel Labour MPs push for easier abortions
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
The Government is facing a defeat over demands by senior Labour backbenchers for the most radical liberalisation of the abortion laws since the Abortion Act was introduced 40 years ago.
Labour MPs are threatening to overturn the Government's advice to hold to the status quo by supporting amendments to the Abortion Act to make it easier to obtain an abortion more quickly.
Dawn Primarolo, the Health minister who is flying back from South Africa today, is said by colleagues to be sympathetic to the calls for liberalisation, but will tell MPs on Monday that the Abortion Act is working and should not be tampered with.
Frank Dobson, the former health secretary, Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat doctor and the Tory John Bercow are leading a cross-party campaign for abortion to be made easier with amendments to the Government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. MPs will be given free votes on the amendments on Monday.
The reformers want to lower the requirement for two doctors to sign their approval to one doctor. They want to allow abortions using drugs to be started in GPs' surgeries, rather than hospitals and to allow trained nurses and midwives to carry out the procedures. They also want women to have the right to administer the second stage of the drugs at home.
Mr Dobson said: "I think we will win. I hope and expect that everybody who voted to protect the upper time limit at 24 weeks will vote for these amendments. These amendments would make it easier for not very well informed women to have an abortion."
But there was a war of words with opponents of abortion. Nadine Dorries, the Tory MP for Mid-Bedfordshire and a former nurse, accused Mr Harris of an "evangelical pursuit of gynaecological blood sports".
Supporters of the liberalisation of abortion laws are confident there is a majority in favour of reform, particularly among Labour women MPs. They beat an attempt by Mrs Dorries and other opponents to tighten the abortion rules in May, when MPs voted to reject amendments to reduce the upper time limit for abortion from 24 weeks.
The amendments closely follow the recommendations of a cross-party committee on science and technology for liberalisation of the abortion laws to try to reduce the number of late abortions. The advice to reject the reforms is almost certain to lead to heated arguments over the issue of abortion.
Dr Howard Stoate, a Labour MP and chairman of the parliamentary primary care group, said he would support reducing the number of doctors required to approve an abortion and allowing nurses to carry out abortions, but he had reservations about allowing them to be conducted in GPs' surgeries.
MPs who want tighter abortion laws are also gearing up for Monday's showdown in the House of Commons.
Mrs Dorries has tabled an amendment to the Bill to prevent terminations after 20 weeks into the pregnancy – a four-week cut on the current limit.
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Comments
17 Comments
The unborn child is not a mindless blob of tissue, it is a human being. We appease our consciences by calling them parasites and a collection of cells. But that is all it is, appeasement. Abortion might be sometimes necessary but it is still ugly. And trying to reduce the enormity of killing a child by reducing the child to a blob, is equally ugly.
Posted by Leah | 11.07.08, 09:09 GMT
I recall reading an article about an orchestral conductor who had to prepare for a work he'd not encountered before. Strangely, he knew every note of the cello solo, though he couldn't recall where he'd heard it before. He mentioned this to his mother, a retired professional cellist. She said that she was not really surprised. She had been practicing the piece when she was four months pregnant with him. Some mindless blob of tissue!! Please - get real!
Posted by Anthony | 11.07.08, 00:52 GMT
With modern day technology, there is a lot of evidence that unborn children are anything but a collection of cells within the mother's body. Ultra Sound Scans show them playing, sucking their thumbs etc.
Don't get me wrong, I know that we have to have safe, legal abortions, but don't pretend that it is anything but the death of a CHILD, and not simply the removal of a parasite, such as a cancerous tumour. If we're going to kill children then at least we should face up to what we are doing.
Posted by Angie | 10.07.08, 15:55 GMT
Oh darn, this post was supposed to be first.
The point Ivan is that these collections of cells are not infants. They are non sentient collections of biological matter, attached to an actual human being's body at the point we allow abortion. And yes sentience is the only sensible manner on which to judge something's right to live, if in living they severely disrupt someone else's quality of life.
With regards to those in comas or suffering from severe brain damage or dementia - I wouldn't particularly consider myself to be really alive if I'd gotten that bad, and the only reason I'd wish not to be killed should I find myself in such a situation is the hope that a miracle cure might be found. I don't see any real point in living as a mindless wreck. And we can keep people in such positions alive on life support as it doesn't involve them completely depending on another person's body, or necessarily cause anyone any desperate hardship.
Posted by Billy-Bob | 10.07.08, 12:07 GMT
Angie - I don't believe it's ever shameful to state the truth, it's unpleasant and uncomfortable, yes. But it's also true. An unborn baby simply is a parasite within the host's body. Whatever one thinks of the other elements of this issue this is true. For what it's worth I do agree with you that abortion is a an regrettable thing, and that we ought to be working to reduce it as much as possible, but to do this we need to provide far better sex education to younger children, as well as free and easily available contraception, available in some manner that doesn't cause embarrassment to those who need it. Free condoms in school and toilets. Which might increase the number of condoms used as slightly foul water balloons in schools, but ought to help with unwanted pregnancies.
I also do feel that our society can make it too difficult for women who want to keep their babies to do so - if a woman wants an abortion for social/economic reasons a society should find a way to help.
Posted by Billy-Bob | 10.07.08, 11:53 GMT
What is it about the Brits who want to get rid of their offspring in utero? the law as it stands is already over indulgent towards this act.
Why would Labour mps want more - cannot the public at large put some opposition against this move or are 'the English' already dead in the water?
Posted by Deanna | 09.07.08, 22:52 GMT
If mothers don't respect the lives of their unborn children, how can we expect the children who do make it through the womb to respect the lives of others. There is a direct link between the ease of abortion and the readiness of teenagers to kill each other. Life is cheap in New Labour's Britain.
Posted by Bill | 09.07.08, 22:17 GMT
I believe that abortion is sometimes a necessary evil but to refer to an unborn child as a parasite is shameful, Billy-bob. Do we kill those who are mentally deficient in some way because they may not have the sentinence of a badger? What about old people with dementia?
The terrible world we live in means that women should have access to legal, safe abortion. But I wish it was otherwise and I wish it never had to happen.
Posted by Angie | 09.07.08, 17:04 GMT
Is it also OK to kill INFANTS, because they're not YET fully formed human beings - just like a foetus also isn't yet a fully formed human being? What is the measure of whether it's ok to kill, or not? A stage of one's development? Is that a proper measure?
Posted by Ivan | 09.07.08, 16:51 GMT
"really has less sentience than say a badger or most animals at that point" - So, it's perfectly OK to kill people in coma, because they "have less sentience than say a badger or most animals at that point"? Is sentience a measure of humanity, a measure of one's deserving to live? I think not.
Posted by Ivan | 09.07.08, 16:47 GMT
17 Comments