showing a 12 week foetus, and this has led some politicians, such as the
Prime Minister, health minister John Reid and David Steel to consider
that the current limit of 24 weeks is too late. The viability argument
is an important one, and should not be ducked:
I think there
are two principles at work:
i) that women
have an absolute right of choice about their own fertility
Ii) there is a societal responsibility towards all human beings
(everyone who has been born)
The first point
is wider than the right to choose (or not) abortion. There should be
free access to contraception for women of all ages. Women should be able
to choose to have children when they want, whereas currently women are
having children later because of financial pressures, housing crisis,
etc. Women should have a right to free fertility treatment on the NHS
(not only promoting equality of access but reducing the incidence of
multiple births as private clinics literally over-egg). Women should be
able to choose the birth experience of their choice, so there should be
more midwife led units, state employed doolas, more support for home
births. There should be state employed breast feeding councillors, much
higher paid maternity/paternity leave, etc. Child allowance should be
much higher so that no-one considers an abortion just because they
cannot afford to have an otherwise wanted baby.
The status of
motherhood and parent hood should be increased and there should be
public support in the shape of nursery provision, workplace crèches,
subsidised canteens for families, etc. (these are all reforms that could
be brought in under capitalism, and with the private family intact. Who
knows how a classless society would deal with child care?)
All
women should have a right to terminate their pregnancy on demand. (There
must be safeguards to ensure this is their own choice not due to
pressure from their family or the father, and that the choice is
informed (aware of the risk to future fertility etc)
The time limit
relates to the second responsibility, in that after a certain point the
foetus, once removed from the womb, is actually a child. A foetus
aborted before 28 weeks is effectively not a viable child, and there is
no societal responsibility towards something that is only a potential
person. A woman who has gone past 28 weeks should still have the right
to an elective caesarean, but on medical and ethical grounds they should
be strongly encouraged to carry the child to term. Early elective
caesareans are unfortunately sometimes necessary (pre-eclampsia, etc)
but are bad for both the mother and child. Of course any mother can give
up a baby for adoption, if they so wish, fortunately most people want
their children.
There are of
course grey areas around the time limit of whether a foetus is viable or
not, but foetal development is quite deterministic and provided the
dates are right (and this can be checked by ultrasound) the health
professionals will be able to determine viability. There are already
acknowledged ethical issues in obstetrics relating to (wanted) premature
babies born after 24 weeks, many of whom are simply allowed to die,
although they could theoretically be saved (at risk of ill -health,
deformity, etc). I think late abortions are related to this known and
relatively common ethical dilemma.
Finally it has
never been put better than the demand: "every child a wanted child,
every mother a willing mother"
December 2004
