Abortion: time for women to know all the facts

AN MP with a cleft palate will this week attempt to introduce a change in the law that could lead to fewer abortions on the grounds of disability.

At present, abortions can be performed beyond the legal limit of 24 weeks if doctors agree a foetus has a "serious handicap", which can include conditions such as cleft palate.

The law does not state what kind of advice a woman should get before making a decision on her unborn child's future.

Nick Palmer, MP for Broxtowe, wants to change this to ensure that women considering abortions because of foetal disabilities are provided with the most detailed and up-to-date scientific, medical and other evidence about any condition and its prognosis.

"I want to add a rider to the current law that ensures that issues such as life expectancy and quality of life are properly looked at and that any woman in this position should also be offered counselling," said Palmer. "I don't want to be telling women what to do but I think it's a good principle that before taking this kind of decision, they should know the full facts."

When Palmer, 58, was born with a cleft palate, his parents were warned that he might never learn to speak and would need intensive speech therapy. He was operated on by Sir Archie Macindoe, who rebuilt the disfigured faces of pilots injured in the Second World War.

"He told my parents that I'd be OK so long as I didn't have a profession that involved much speaking – and as an MP I don't stop talking so they're obviously quite chuffed at the way things turned out."

Palmer, who is a parliamentary aide to energy minister Malcolm Wicks, said: "Having a cleft palate has never been a big deal for me but I can see that there's a tendency for people to see physical perfection as important.

"There's also a 'poor little thing' attitude where people are concerned that a child's potential is going to be ruined because of some minor physical defect.

"If the law says we should not have abortions after 24 weeks because the foetus is viable then it does not seem right that we allow abortions up to 40 weeks unless the full facts are known."

Palmer plans to table an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which gets its second reading tomorrow. It is the first time in almost 20 years that MPs have had an opportunity to change the abortion and fertility laws.

More than 100 abortions a year are carried out late because doctors have detected "physical or mental abnormalities" in the foetus which would cause it to be born "seriously handicapped". What constitutes a "severe abnormality" is not fully defined in law and doctors can apply a degree of discretion when taking a mother's wishes into consideration.

In 2003, a Church of England curate with a cleft palate, Joanna Jepson, failed to get the police to prosecute two doctors who performed an abortion on a baby with a cleft palate at 28 weeks. The abortion was deemed to be legal.

Palmer said at the time: "I feel a sense of lost potential that babies who are fit and healthy are aborted at a late stage in pregnancy just because they have a flaw in their appearance. A cleft palate is a difficulty that can be overcome, not a tragedy that must be averted at all costs."

Disability is not the only abortion battleground. When the key votes on the embryo bill come at the end of the month, anti-abortion campaigners claim they can secure a reduction in the legal time limit to around 18 weeks. Anti-abortion MPs are tabling a series of amendments reducing the limit to between 12 and 20 weeks.

MP Jim Dobbin, chairman of the all-party anti-abortion group, said: "A realistic compromise may be around 18 weeks. Both MPs and the public recognise that medical advances mean that now is the right time to have a review of the abortion time limit."

MP Brian Iddon, a member of the Commons science and technology committee, insisted that public opinion was firmly in favour of the existing time limit of 24 weeks. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, has said he will not vote to change the rules on late abortions but he will vote to reduce the abortion limit for healthy babies to 20 weeks.

The issue is a difficult one for Cameron, because his son Ivan was born with a severe form of cerebral palsy and epilepsy and needs 24-hour care.

Gordon Brown, whose youngest son Fraser has cystic fibrosis, has previously voted to liberalise the abortion laws.

He has said more recently that he will be "guided by the science" when it comes to changing the law.

Repeat operations at record levels as women find new form of contraception

Nicholas Christian

THE number of repeat abortions being carried out in the UK has now reached record levels amid fears that some women are using the controversial method as a form of contraception.

New figures reveal that in 2006 almost 60,000 were carried out on women who had previously had a termination – a rise of 5% over two years.

In some cases, women were having a sixth abortion.

The figures, which emerged at Westminster, showed that almost a third of all abortions were carried out on women who had previously terminated an earlier pregnancy.

They came as MPs prepared to table amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryo Bill, designed to reduce the time limit for abortions from 24 weeks to 20.

Philip Hollobone, Conservative MP for Kettering, said the rising number of repeat abortions was "truly appalling".

Hollobone, who supports the call for a 20-week upper limit, said: "There has never been more help available to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but clearly increasing numbers of women are not getting the message.

"Most people would be surprised to know that one third of all abortions are repeat and shocked to know that the number is actually going up."

He added that lowering the upper limit would reduce repeat abortions and the overall number of terminations.

However, pregnancy advisers said there may often be complex reasons for repeat abortions.

Ann Furedi, from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said most women took impending motherhood very seriously. But "for some women faced with an unintended pregnancy, that will mean having an abortion".

She pointed out that 68% of women undergoing a termination in 2006, the latest date for which official figures are available, were doing it for the first time.

There were 59,687 repeat abortions in 2006, up from 58,068 in 2005 and 56,245 in 2004. In 1996, 28% of those undergoing terminations had previously had one or more abortions, but by 2006 that had climbed to 32%.

Rates varied depending on age. Almost a quarter of women aged under 25 having an abortion were undergoing a repeat procedure. Rates also varied across the country, with 35% of women under 25 in some parts of London having repeat procedures.

Campaigners for a 20-week limit believe that, at 200,000 a year, Britain is performing too many terminations.