Over 700 medical professionals have backed calls to MPs to lower the abortion deadline to 22 weeks.
They have signed a letter to all 650 MPs urging them to vote in support of a landmark amendment to the federal government’s Criminal Justice Bill tabled by a cross-party group of over 30 MPs led by Caroline Ansell MP.
The MPs say that the abortion deadline needs to be lowered in keeping with advancements in medical science which have led to more premature babies surviving before the present limit of 24 weeks.
Survival rates within the last decade for babies born at 23 weeks have doubled from two in 10 to 4 in 10, resulting in changes to guidance from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine (BAPM) concerning the intervention of doctors to avoid wasting the lives of babies born from 22 weeks onwards.
Research by the University of Leicester and Imperial College London last November found that between 2020 and 2021, some 261 babies born at 22 and 23 weeks survived.
Mrs Ansell expressed her support for the amendment in an op-ed for The Telegraph newspaper during which she identified the contradiction in current law which means “one team of medics working to avoid wasting life and one other to finish life” even in the identical hospital.
“These babies are unquestionably human: based on the NHS website, at 12 weeks, the unborn baby is ‘fully formed’; by 18 weeks, babies can begin to answer loud noises from the surface world,” she wrote.
“By 22 weeks, they enter a pattern of sleeping and waking, and by 23 weeks they’re practising respiration movements to organize for all times outside the womb.
“And yet in 2021, essentially the most recent yr for which we’ve got full records, 755 abortions of babies at 22 or 23 weeks gestation were performed under ground C of the statutory grounds under which abortions are permitted, for which there may be currently a 24-week deadline.”
John Wyatt, emeritus professor of neonatal paediatrics at UCL and a practising Christian, told the newspaper that his own personal experience as a neonatal doctor persuaded him of the necessity to change the law.
“I even have first-hand experience that on the one hand we’re capable of keep babies alive from 22 to 23 weeks gestation and lots of of them survive and live normal and healthy lives, yet at the identical time the present abortion act allows abortion to be carried out effectively at maternal request at 24 weeks gestation,” he said.
Right to Life UK said that if passed, the amendment can be “the most important change to abortion law for a generation”.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK Catherine Robinson said: “The UK abortion deadline is double the typical amongst EU countries, which is 12 weeks gestation, a degree in pregnancy when the NHS website describes the unborn baby as ‘fully formed’.
“At the moment, a baby at 22 or 23 weeks gestation may very well be born prematurely and have a dedicated medical team provide expert care to try to avoid wasting his or her life, while one other baby at the identical age could have their life deliberately ended by abortion in the identical hospital at the identical time. This is a contradiction in UK law.
“That’s why we’d like to support Caroline Ansell’s amendment to lower the abortion deadline from 24 to 22 weeks in keeping with advances in medical science.”
