Government backs sound science in abortion report - HARRIS

11.40.00am GMT Thu 29th Nov 2007

Commenting on the Government's response today to the Commons Science & Technology Select Committee report on Scientific Developments relating to the Abortion Act 1967, Dr Evan Harris MP, Liberal Democrat member of the Committee, said:

"The Government have accepted both the thrust and most of the key conclusions of the report, which is not a surprise since scientific opinion will be the same in the Department of Health as everywhere else."

"This now confirms the widespread consensus among paediatricians, obstetricians, their representative organisations and mainstream politicians, that the threshold of foetal viability has not reduced since the upper abortion time limit came down from 28 to 24 weeks in 1990. For those politicians, such as David (now Lord) Steel and Gordon Brown who say they will be guided by the scientific evidence on this question, this will tend to confirm the maintenance of the 24 week upper limit for the very small number of very vulnerable women who rely on it."

On the question of the need for two doctors and allowing nurses to carry out abortions, the Government agrees that there are no safety, effectiveness or acceptability reasons standing in the way of reform.

"The Government cannot claim logically that just because many abortions are carried out under 13 weeks that means there are no delays caused by the current barriers to early access. Such terminations could and should be carried out even earlier in many cases to match performance in other European countries."

On the question of allowing the second dose of an early medical abortion to be taken at home, Dr Harris said:

"The Minister conceded in oral evidence that there was no reason based on safety, effectiveness, or acceptability for the law not to be changed now and that the pilot projects are irrelevant to this question, so it is not clear why the Government continues to dodge this issue in its reply, 17 years after it took power, to provide choice for women undergoing early medical abortion."

On the question of the provision of accurate information to women, the Government concurred with the Committee's endorsement of the current RCOG guidelines.

"I welcome the recognition by the Government that pro-life, so-called counselling services need to be more transparent about the fact that they do not offer balanced options or unbiased information, in their advertising."

On foetal abnormality, where the Committee called for more data on the reasons for late abortion and fresh guidance on what constituted serious abnormalities, Dr Harris said:

"I welcome the Government's recognition that guidance in this area would be useful, and it is high time that applications were made to carry out the research that the Government indicates is permitted on the clinical grounds for abortion for foetal abnormality after 24 weeks, since the published data in this area is not sufficient to accept or reject assertions and allegations of inappropriate abortions."

On foetal pain and 4D imaging, Dr Harris said:

"The Committee did, as our report makes clear, consider the opinions of Dr Anand and Prof Stuart Campbell, when concluding that the current consensus view that foetal pain was very unlikely before 26 weeks and that this was not in any event relevant to abortion law reform, and the Government agrees".