Abortion Report is sound science which MPs should follow - Harris

12.05.00pm GMT Mon 5th Nov 2007

Responding to the Science and Technology Select Committee Report on Abortion, Dr Evan Harris, Liberal Democrat MP on the Committee said,

"This thorough report - after a rigorous enquiry into a set of very narrow scientific issues - sets out clear conclusions on what the scientific evidence can tell us about abortion law reform."

"The medical evidence is stark about how the threshold of viability has not reduced below 24 weeks, and that is why our conclusions are so firm. For many parliamentarians - like Lord David Steel himself and Gordon Brown - who have said they will follow the science on this question, this will make a difference to how they vote on the question of the upper time limit."

"The Committee had no alternative - given the medical and scientific facts - but to argue for the end of the 40 year requirement for two doctors signatures, the old-fashioned ban on nurses performing abortions, and the unnecessary restriction of choice for women about where they have early medical abortion."

"I am pleased the Committee argues for the GMC to make clear that doctors who conscientiously object must alert their patients in advance and ensure another doctor takes the consultation if abortion is a possibility".

"The so called "minority report" is an amusing mish-mash of paranoid conspiracy theories, pseudo-scientific clap-trap and anti-abortion zealotry. The few recognisably scientific arguments it makes are completely dealt with in the Committee's report and rebutted by the totality of the scientific literature"