This article is written by a Doctor...(* indicates link)

*At last the abortion debate has an opportunity to be discussed without prejudice

That is why I would like to see the time limit for abortion set at 17 weeks - a level that would still be considerably higher than France, Germany or Italy, where the cut-off point is 12 weeks.

My reasoning owes less to moral or ethical objections than to my decades of medical experience.

Thanks to advances in scientific knowledge, we now know that it is legal in Britain to abort babies who, if born prematurely, might live - however slim that chance might be.

That leaves us doctors in a very awkward position. For example, if I were to deprive a premature 22-week- old baby of oxygen and thus cause a long-term disability, I could (quite rightly) be sued for negligence.

And yet the law also allows me to abort that same baby until 24 weeks.

For doctors, trained to preserve life, that is a terrible inconsistency in the law.

*************

remember being on duty as a young doctor, shortly after the implementation of the 1967 Abortion Act, and spending the night treating a premature baby, born at 22 weeks.

During the shift, I chatted to a consultant who had just carried out an abortion on two 24-week-old twins.

What she told me was utterly chilling, but I make no apology for repeating it here. Discussing the termination she had just performed, she said: "The babies were so strong and were crying so loudly that I didn't know what to do.

"Eventually, I had to bash their heads to shut them up."


*Fuelling the debate: The boy who's a born fighter at only 1Ib 3oz

He weighed just 1lb 3oz and was barely longer than a biro when he arrived earlier this month at just 23 weeks and five days, and doctors put his chances of surviving at only five per cent.

IHOP:

You may know that abortion was actually, on the margins, an issue in the 2005 election campaign between Tony Blair and Labour and Michael Howard and Conservatives.  (Of course, both parties have new leaders now -- Gordon Brown and David Cameron.)

The Conservative "manifesto" (platform) advocated reducing the time of gestation for which abortion was allowable in the U.K. from 24 weeks to 20 weeks, for just the reasons listed in your post, IHOP.  Labour advocated keeping the law as it was and is; of course, they won the election.

I have been very consistent in opposing post-viability abortions except to save the life or vital organs of the mother.  I don't know if it's 17 weeks or 20 weeks; but objectively, babies of 24 weeks gestation have survived birth.

[QUOTE=doxieman122;32037]The Conservative "manifesto" (platform) advocated reducing the time of gestation for which abortion was allowable in the U.K. from 24 weeks to 20 weeks,[/quote]

No it didn't - the idea didn't last long enough to reach the manifesto.

[QUOTE=MedKit77;32400]
Secondly, 24 week old fetuses are NOT "strong" and they do not have the lung capacity to cry loudly for extended lengths of time. [/QUOTE]

That's ONE of the statements in this article that made me question if it were biased.

[QUOTE=MedKit77;32400]
Thirdly, no doctor would ever say that they "bashed" the head of any fetus, and to suggest that a licensed MD would do this merely to "shut them up" is to believe in fairy tales.[/QUOTE]

That didnt sound like medical terminology to me either. The other odd thing I noticed was reference to health statistics of Russia with respect to abortion. That would have no bearing whatsoever on the health statistics in the UK.

[QUOTE=doxieman122;35136]... for me and I'm guessing, from her different perspective, IHOP (since neither of us are British).

Sheesh.[/QUOTE]

When you're married to a Brit (my late husband was) and are moving there (part-time, we'd inherited a place) you tend to pay attention to elections and things, doxie.  We've also had the conversation before.

There are no votes in God in the UK (virtually none, anyway. The Brits are extremely suspicious of people claiming that God's on their side - historically they did their best to export them (primarily to America) so political parties tend to be terribly careful about taking on religious agendas.  Very few abortions take place after 20 weeks anyway so it's just window-dressing politically - likely to loose many women's votes as an attack on rights while not likely to gain many religious votes since there are very few right wing religious voters around anyway.

If the Conservatives would have gained from taking it on as a policy, they'd have done so - they wouldn't so they didn't.

BTW, I was listening to an interview with a UK Catholic bishop recently (the wonders of Internet Radios, a true contribution to civilization, I'd say, much better than having to listen on the computer) who was saying, basically, that there was no hope whatsoever of getting rid of abortion in the UK so the lifer movement would see a reduction in the number of weeks as a great triumph.

Two different cultures, doxie, two different cultures.