Abortion lobby on the back foot

David Davis

I am a molecular biophysicist. The question is not about "pain": this is quite irrelevant, and equates the discussion to a hypothetical one between nazi doctors about whether living people ought to be anaesthatized before being thrust into gas chambers. If you believe that Human Beings have the three Natural Rights (to his Life, his Liberty and to aquiring and FREE disposal, without taxation, of his justly acquired Property) as any Libertarian ought to do, and almost all I know do, then you only want to decide at what point a Human being "is". Feminists, being a variety of post-modern people, don't see a foetus as a human but as "something"; that is to say, in their eyes not very much. The earlier the better of course, since it has little or no resemblance to a formed human. They deploy "a woman's right to choose". Choose what? What can this organism choose, that is as fully authenticated in gene terms as its mother - or indeed its father. (They have cunningly made fathers irrelevant through socialism.) I have to conclude after much thought that the foetus - nay, the embryo - is as human as the choosers who choose to murder it.

Anon

Well done for exposing this hypocracy

Sandy Jones

That's what is needed, a tiger with teeth who keeps digging away and isn't looking for the quick fix headline most MPs look for.If Nadine keeps digging away this could produce one hell of a fight within the government as the female Labour MPs wont budge on abortion limits.

Mary Donnelly

A very illuminating piece, I was not aware of the smoke and mirrors tactics deployed by the government on this very important issue. It appears that the scientific evidence speaks for itself and a review of 24 weeks is well overdue.

Peter Saunders

Anand is an international authority on fetal pain and in fact Seminars of Perinatology published his major review paper just this month - Go to PubMed via Google, type in 'anand fetal pain' and the paper will come up top of the list! His work is easily found on Pub Med, the online index of medical journals, and a search on 'anand kj' will bring up 18 papers in peer-reviewed journals published this year alone. It seems quite disingenuous of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to be making statements like this without clearly making even the most rudimentary attempt to review the evidence. Is it laziness, arrogance or a deliberate attempt to deceive? Time will tell. I do hope that they will soon be writing to the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons to apologise for misrepresenting the evidence in this way. And I hope that members of the Science and Technology Committee will be asking the Health Minister some very seacrhing questions on Wednesday. This could be very embarrassing for the government.

Kerrie Bavidge

"We are unaware of the work of Dr Anand or any other work that contradicts the basic findings of the review. Perhaps Dr Anand could direct us to the work he is referring to." How can the RCOG simply deny they know of him or his work? If they were able to give evidence that contradicts his work, that would be one thing. This rather suggests that politically it would be easier to pretend his work does not exist!

Richard

The Anand research being ignored is of great concern when science is supposed to be the key issue in this debate. Has Nadine "got it in one" when she suggests business interests are being preserved at all costs?

Lucy Atkins

The cynical side of me is reminded of the amount of criticism there has been against pro-life groups for being 'biased' and 'unscientific' in their approach in the last few weeks. It is refreshing to see that not all media have been taken in by the RCOG and their own biased and nonscientific approach! Keep up the good work.

Rachel McCollum

so great to hear abortion lobbyists on the back foot, this has gone on for far too long, 6.5 million innocent, helpless lives destroyed. Its time for change and reformation.

Matt

Surely the committee wont be able to simply ignore the science will they? I thought the point of a select committee was that it was there to provide non party political advice to the government. Does this mean that the committee will now challenge the RCOG?

Dr Hans-Christian Raabe

I have recently spoken to a researcher who works in London on the field of foetal pain. she describes a likely pain reaction in foetuses as early as 12 weeks such as an increase in stress hormones such as epinephrine and cortisol, a reaction that is blocked by the prior administration of fentanyl - an opiate - before the procedure. there does not appear to be any significant difference between the reaction of a foetus at say 12-16 weeks and the reaction of a foetus at say 28 weeks. we are being told that the foetus at 28 weeks feels pain, but not at say before 24 weeks. BUT - if the biochemical reaction at 12 weeks is identical to the one at 28 weeks, this points to the foetus feeling pain at 12 weeks. the only reason why there isn't data before 12 weeks is because mothers tend not to be seen in foetal medicine units that early. I would not at all be surprised if a reaction would occur even before 12 weeks!

Christopher MIles (Waihi, New Zealand)

Let us face facts, abortion is murder.

Richard Dolby

More disingenuous nonsense from an MP who seems to specialise in it. You are talking one week about a limit of 22 weeks, the next about a limit of 20 weeks, when we all know that you oppose abortion. So why don't you be honest and come out and say that you want the limit to be zero weeks ? Then we would see how much support you have. If you want to have misguided beliefs on this, that is fine - just don't think you can inflict them on women who don't want to be forced to have babies. In an ideal world contraception would work all the time [hey, unless you're a Catholic, in which it is verboten, fact fans] and it wouldn't be necessary. But last time I looked this wasn't a perfect world - maybe the one you inhabit is, Ms Dorries ?? Or are you like the Americans in favour of capital punishment who believe that life is sacred, er, until birth ?? I'll tell you what, you mind your own business and let other women mind theirs. Oh, and trying to find a picture of Dawn Primarolo having a bad hair day is a cheap, nasty snide shot even by your guttural 'anti gypsy' standards.

Nadine Dorries

Richard,
I don't have access to photos of Dawn Primarolo, bad hair day or otherwise - the photo was posted by the Spectator without my knowledge.

I do not stand at zero weeks. I believe life begins and ends with the first and last heartbeat, which is around 9 - 12 weeks.

What I do believe in, is women being in full possession of the facts and at the moment they aren't, because the woman might change her mind and that would get in the way of the abortionist waiting for a payment.

A woman seeking an abortion in this country is the victim of a well organised industry.

You are right about one thing, I do want to go lower than 20 weeks - I would settle for the European average of 13 weeks, but would prefer 9.

I have no idea what 'guttural anti gypsy' means and therefore can't answer that charge I'm afraid!

Yours,
Nadine.
Nadine Dorries MP

Adrian Owens

Nadine, you state: I believe life begins and ends with the first and last heartbeat, which is around 9 - 12 weeks. The heart starts to beat in the human embryo as early as 21 days or 3 weeks after fertilisation and certainly within a day or two of this time. If you link life with a beating heart, then you will need to adjust your thinking on this subject.

Dr Chris Richards

Anand's studies are important in showing us how early the unborn baby acquires important attributes. However, an emphasis on this fact can lead us into one of two errors. First, pain sensitivity must not be used to define the start of life. This is intrinsic and nor related to a baby's abilities. Second, a lack of pain does not give anyone moral liberty to do what they like to the unborn child. If this were the case, none of us should feel safe under anaesthetic during an operation!

Viv

I wish Nadine every success. It is hard to believe a so called civilised society can behave in such a way. I firmly believe many women use abortion as a form of contraception. Although contraception sometimes fails, when used responsiblyI do not believe it fails as often as Richard Dolby implies. Nadine is right to try and create a perfect world in this area, we all know it will never happen completely but it is right to try, otherwise things will never improve.

David Randall

'Pro-abortion', not 'pro-choice'. A helpful distinction. In medical journals it is now mandatory to declare 'competing interests' - things but which may mean that you benefit from a particular outcome, but that do not render you inelligable to speak on a subject. There has been much unpleasantness recently about members of faith groups having to declare their religious affiliations, as if somehow compromised by this involvement. Isn't it high time to recognise that if your organisation's existence depends on abortion remaining legal, that this represents a highly significant interest that may influence your judgement? Surely BPAS and Marie Stopes are pro-abortion (their livelihood), rather than pro-choice, or even pro-women.

Michael McGowan

Nadine, a very courteous and restrained response to the predictable ad hominem abuse from whoever "Richard Dolby" is. This hysterical adherent of the pro-death movement gives us a vivid insight into the hate-contorted mindset of many of these people.

Stuart Cunliffe

Nadine Dorries' entry on the Spectator blog speaks for itself. The problem is she finds in her opposition not reasoned argument but an ideology. One definition of ideology in my dictionary is 'an idea that is false or held for the wrong reasons but is believed with such conviction as to be irrefutable.' Oh, for some daylight to be allowed to shine in!

David Randall

Stuart, an interesting definition of ideology. Does it apply too to the idea that abortion is a 'basic human right' (RCOG 2001)? Or is this claim empirically proven? How would one go about refuting it?

Donna

I think Nadine is brave to say that she is not someone who wants abortion to be illegal. The problem for me with the opposite to the pro-abortionist has been the pro-lifer. I am not a chrisitan, but I am someone who values life and I am a decent person who thinks it is the equivalent of murder to abort at 20 weeks.There has been no one to speak up for me unless I declared a christian interest. If I were a christian I would thank god that at last someone in a temperate moderate position has come forward and said what should be said. abortion at a late stage is wrong, not because of what the bible preaches, because it is just wrong. For what it's worth, everyone in my office agrees with me (8) as we have just discussed this.

An irritated woman

It would take a very peculiar woman to use abortion as a form of contraception. Who would choose to undergo an operation, and a complex, unpleasant one if it is carried out at 24 weeks, when she could just take a pill or use a condom? There may be some women that odd but the majority must have serious reasons for seeking abortion, especially at a late stage. If an unborn baby can feel pain then it can be anaesthetised before the abortion is done. This is not not an argument to prevent the abortion happening at all. I would like to ask the pro-life groups what exactly they are hoping to achieve by making abortion illegal. You must be incredibly naive to think that this will stop abortion from happening. All those years it was illegal it went on all the time, only behind closed doors and in a far more dangerous way than it does now. A woman still dies somewhere in the world every five minutes from an illegal abortion. Is that what pro-lifers are trying to achieve in this country too?

Dr. Lakshmi Raina

I am utterly amazed at the response of the RCOG to Professor Anand's contribution. If it weren't so pathetic, I would find it hilarious in its ignorance and naivety. Can it be that the RCOG really believe the tosh they spout?

"We are unaware of the work of Dr Anand or any other work that
contradicts the basic findings of the review".

Translation : We would much rather remain ignorant of this seminal work if it means it essentially exposes our own biased and unscientific attitude to fetal pain. We simply don't want to know about ANYTHING that contradicts our prejudiced position. To acknowledge it would be political suicide, so we prefer to adopt the view that while Knowledge may be Power, Ignorance is Bliss.

"Perhaps Dr Anand could
direct us to the work he is referring to".

Errrm.... so the RCOG, a bunch of highly qualified professionals, have not heard of PubMed, then? Or a search engine called Google!

Surely Shakespeare had the RCOG in mind when he wrote : "Upon what lies doth this our RCOG feed that it is grown so blase"!

Dearie me - excuse me while I bust a gut laughing.
UNBELIEVABLE.

Dr. Lakshmi Raina

Wrt Donna's post, I am not sure why one needs to be a christian, or indeed have any faith at all, to be opposed to abortion. Incidentally, christianity is not the only faith that finds abortion abhorrent, all the major religions do. In fact, while in christianity it is merely INFERRED that abortion is wrong (cos seen as equivalent to murder), in religions like hinduism it is actively named and proscribed as sinful.

Wrt an "irritated woman"'s post, the inference that the majority must have "serious reasons" is naive, especially in view of the fact that abortion is freely available on the NHS, there for the mere asking. It has become a lifestyle choice and I can confidently predict that paying for it would be a suitable deterrent. It is the easy and FREE access that makes it desirable as a contraceptive method.

>> A woman still dies somewhere in the world every five minutes from an illegal abortion

Yes, in countries like India where abortion is LEGAL. This is mostly due to lack of funds to pay for the abortion, or fear of exposure following a hospital visit. Legalising abortion has achieved bugger-all in preventing illegal abortions in the 3rd world.

I do agree that the pain argument is irrelevant - one does not kill someone just because they cannot feel pain (e.g. some congenital and acquired conditions). However, to some people it appears to be of paramount importance, their support for abortion seems to have been based on the false premise that it wasn't murder because the fetus did not suffer.

Clearly this position is incorrect (the fetus does feel pain) and it is impt to show that it is.

Colin Harte

If 9-12 weeks, or even 21-23 days, were truly significant, wouldn't these in fact be regarded as 0 days and life measured from there? The reality is that human life begins at conception/fertilisation. Questions about beating hearts, brain activity, fetal sentience, independent survival, ability to speak, competence in calculating complicated algebraic equations - or whatever else might be suggested - are entirely arbitrary and beside the point. These things don't add a jot to the humanity already possessed from the moment of conception. The Select Committee should adopt a truly scientific approach and recognise the human being for who he or she is from conception, and recommend a ban on all abortions. Anything else is as unscientific as it is inhuman.

Julia Millington

There has been a reluctance by many of those involved in this inquiry to consider research into fetal pain and evidence of the vast improvement in the survival rates of babies born before the 24-week abortion time limit. It would appear that they have cherry-picked their evidence to support their pro-'choice' ideological position.

Mark Pickering

I find it slightly ironic from the RCOG website that they are trying to get their abortion advice republished as NICE guidelines. Nice for who? ...and before anyone responds, yes I do know what NICE stands for - I spent this morning quoting them in a GP exam!

Alison Davis

I notice that none of the discussion has yet mentioned the issue of abortion on grounds of disability. This can currently be done up to the moment of birth. Just like any other person, a disabled person's life begins at the moment of conception, and from that point on s/he shares the right to life, the most fundamental right of all. Yet currently 90% of babies with spina bifida (which I have) are aborted - a form of fatal discrimination. No "upper limit" is just because all fail to protect the most vulnerable unborn children. Justice can only be achieved by protecting all unborn children including those with disabilities from the beginning of their lives, and supporting women to either keep their babies or give them up for adoption - both non-violent options.

Nathan Jacobs

...Discusting

An irritated woman

Dr. Lakshmi Raina, I'm not sure how the lack of cost of abortion enters into the equation when contraception is also freely available on the NHS. And, I repeat, why would anyone want to have an unpleasant operation when she could just pop a pill to prevent pregnancy? Yes, 3rd world illegal abortions are undoubtedly dangerous. But they would be equally so in a 1st world country as there would be no regulations to govern them. Poorer people would go to have them done in the cheapest, most dangerous way, while the rich could afford to go to better places. (See Vera Drake).

Michael McGowan

No-one denies that normal contraception is that unpleasant. But that doesn't alter the fact that abortion de facto on demand has become just another form of contraception. There are 200,000-odd abortions a year in this country. the operation cannot be that unpleasant: are there 200,000 leg amputations a year in this country?

John Sotson (Dr)

One does not need to be a doctor or scientist to know that a human mother conceives a human child which is genetically human and genetically complete at the time of conception. To abort the child is to kill the child. The only way to justify abortion is to close ones mind to the obvious. That is how the human abortion holocaust has been allowed to happen. Please God some time soon right reason and justice will prevail

Dr Steve Brennan

UK Abortion has become an "industry",at 200.000 operations per year, it is a massive business, more done by the private sector these days. It seems it is rare that doctors help women to understand the situation thoroughly, and they find themselves quickly on a conveyor belt to the procedure. Doctors who sign the forms often don't even see them, let alone explain what will happen, or the alternatives.We must find ways of turning this tide, and full knowledge by all must surely help to reduce the incidence. The RCOG has given up on serious balanced advice on this, so steeped in abortion are its members and fellows.

Dr Michael Jarmulowicz

Why the mantra 'My right to choose'? The vast majority of women seeking abortion say 'I feel I have no other choice'. The really honest approach is to be truthful with all the information and show that there are choices which dont destroy new life. Isnt there something strange in the fact that the RCOG membership are involved in the destruction of 200,000 new lives whilst at the same time being involved in a similar number of investigations and treatments for people seeking to create new life.

Dr. Claude E. Newbury

An induced abortion involves the brutal killing of an unborn child. The deliberate killing of an innocent human being is murder. The killing of innocent helpless unborn human beings is murder. In this vile shedding of innocent blood it is irrelevant whether he child being torn limb from limb is fully able to feel the agony of being slaughtered or not. Obviously none of them survive to later recount the ordeal because the proceedure is and is intended to be homicidal. Also it is irrelevant to the child whether her assassin is the professor of gynaecology himself killing the child in a sparklingly antiseptic operating theatre of if she is killed by a less professionally trained and academically exaulterd murderer. The spilling of innocent blood is a crime that cries to heaven for vengeance and I look for the day when those responsible for the abortion holocaust will be subjected to a new Nuremberg Atrocity Trial.

Tiberius

I am very pleasantly surprised by the four doctors' posts above. If such views are the mainstream, they are not widely known. Medical science, meet your friend Christianity.

Viv

To irritated woman - you are obviously very naive to think abortion is not used as a form of contraception. Have you any idea of the number of people too ignorant or lazy to use contraception? Also to gliby state the foetus can be anaesthetised as if that makes it OK I find abhorrant. You not only sound a very irritated woman but a completely cold and ruthless individual, the SS would have been proud of you.

Barnabas

Tiberius - there are many Christian doctors who oppose abortion but cannot easily make their voices heard as it is assumed in the medical establishment that freely available abortion is a desirable part of "Health Care". Lobbying to change the law is only part of the pro life agenda - it is also important to get the public to face the question of what a baby is worth.

nikki todd

i think shes wrong!!!!im currently 24 weeks pregnant,and i could never do that!i have felt my baby moving around inside of me for the past 5 or 6 weeks,it is a little person that has just as much right to life as i do!i believe that if an abortion is necessary for whatever reason,it should be carried out before 12 weeks.not that i would have one myself,even if the baby turned out to be handicapped!every one has the right to live no matter what their disability-it is a god given right for christ's sake!!!!!!

David Lindsay

Everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone, should read my friend Ann Farmer's Prophets and Priests: The Hidden Face of the Birth Control Movement (London: The Saint Austin Press, 2002; ISBN 1 901157 62 8). Ann is yet another of us homeless asylum-seekers from New Labour. Well, until now, I hope: see my blog. The war against fertility is, and has always been, the war against the working class, the war against the poor at home and abroad, the war against the electoral base of the Left, the war against the social provisions for which the Left exists, and, above all, the war against women. Furthermore (this bit is Lindsay, not Farmer - but I'm sure that she would agree with it), the idea of fertility as a medicable condition, requiring powerful drugs or even surgical interventions to prevent a woman's body from doing exactly what it does naturally, is basically and ultimately the idea that femaleness itself is such a condition, a sort of XX Syndrome. I can think of nothing that is actually more misogynistic than that, although some things are equally so, notably the view that the preborn child is simultaneously insentient and a part of the woman's body. Is it the whole of a woman's body that is insentient, or only the parts most directly connected with reproduction?

Declan

Ever accompanied anyone to have an abortion carried out? This was a private operation at a London hospital. The distressed women was made to sit with expectant mothers in line for a scan. She was made to look at the scan and the nurses had barely disguised contempt for what she was doing. I saw all this. I cannot see why the distaste in much of the medical world for abortion is not expressed more widely.

An irritated woman

Viv, I did not say that abortion is never used as a contraceptive, only that this is odd and I believe the majority of abortions that take place are done for other, more serious reasons. And, even if a woman were using abortion as a contraceptive, why on earth would she wait 24 weeks to have it done? You also clearly have strong views on life of the unborn baby but I do not consider it equal to the life of a person already born- and neither does the law. Even up to 40 weeks, even if the woman is actually in labour, the foetus is not legally equal to the mother. I consider the rights and choices of the woman to be paramount. And, as I said before, you are never going to stop abortion. It has gone on since the dawn of time, legally and illegally (which is preferable?). If a woman wants an abortion past 12 weeks then she may takes steps outside the law to have it done if it were made illegal.

David Lindsay

An Irritated Woman, the law can be changed. Then where would your position be? And as Peter Hitchens writes on his blog this week, "There is no reliable information about the true state of affairs before abortion was legalised in Britain 40 years ago. Whose word would you trust on this matter? Pro-abortion propagandists talk of tens of thousands of bloody back-street abortions, and in the 1960s estimated these at anywhere up to 250,000 a year. How did they know? At the time that the Bill was going through Parliament, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said of such claims:'These are without any secure factual foundation of which we are aware. The incidence of criminal abortion varies widely from city to city . . . in the experience of many gynaecologists working outside large cosmopolitan cities the occurrence is relatively uncommon and, when it does happen, the abortion is more often induced by the woman herself than by some other person.' The report said there were, on average, 50 fatal abortion attempts each year in England and Wales. Of these, 30 followed criminal acts. 'If there are 100,000 criminal (including self-induced) abortions being performed annually this means that they are attended by a mortality rate of only 0.3 per 1,000. The risks of criminal abortion are established to be high, so the known number of deaths suggests that the total number of such cases must be considerably less than that alleged.' The only alternative explanation for the lack of fatalities, said the doctors, was that criminal abortions in back streets must be safer than legal ones in hospitals. Not very likely, is it?"

Chris Newell

Nadine seems to be one of those "single issue" politicians driven by a personal obsession (usually religiously motivated). Abortion is here to stay. 81% of the population support it and no amount of tactical sniping by Nadine is ever going to stop it.

Michael McGowan

Chis Newell wheels out the standard bogeyman abuse of the pro-death movement. Nadine must be an "obsessive" because she opposes abortion on demand and advocates a shortening of the 24-week limit, as do a lot of other people, including many who make up Chris Newell's 81%. Of course it isn't "obsessive" to argue for the opposite, because omniscient people like Chris Newell support it. Even worse, Nadine must be religious.....an even more heinous crime to far-seeing enlightened atheists such as Chris Newell who no doubt have a monopoly of wisdom and truth. Presumably by religious he means "Christian". Were Nadine Muslim, he would be far more deferential, even though Islam opposes abortion.

Michael Gregory Sharp

Im very pleased you are giving coverage to the abortion debate. Im quite sure William Wilberforce and the anti-slavers were accused of 'tactical sniping'. Im also quite sure slavery enjoyed high levels of support in its time,fortunatley this only slowed not prevented its eventual abolition. Its about morals Chris.

Dr. Steve Brennan.

The Secularists don't like the fact that Jews, Christians and Muslims claim that induced abortion is wrong. They have to change the "Law" to make it "right". The trouble is the Secularists seem to run most of the country now, and the RCOG and Parliament, for example, are full of them. The Christian view, especially, is being squeezed out of politics etc.

Right wing Tory

What happens to a 19 week foetus that is severely disabled and will not live outside of the womb at full term? This is the time when most women go for their first scan, it happened to me. Giving birth to a dead foetus (they kill it in the womb first) is not pleasant. What about the women who are raped and either deny or do not know they are pregnant? Should they be made to give birth? More education is needed, less state support for pregnant teenagers and to adopt the US's approach, "one mistake on the state and that's it", this will cut down unwanted and kids on the state. A balance would be abortion on demand up to 12 weeks as the suction method can be used, after that you have to give birth. Are you anti's still with me? What women would want to have to go through a birth after 12 weeks? Education must win.

Matt Stammers

It bothers me that abortion is a business built on the destruction of human life. That the Royal College of Gynaecologists would brush under the carpet a paper claiming that foetuses experience pain is trust eroding. I think my believe in the moral neutrality of RCOG guidelines has just been destroyed.

Scotch Lass

It is sad that so many important personages as those in the RCOG who are helping shape the future of our entire nation cannot consult an online library or use google. Hmmm, in hot water I think!

Alexander Stilwell

Civilised people do not kill children. The instinct to protect children should be and normally is in inverse proportion to their ability to protect themselves. The child in the womb is the most vulnerable.

Mark Harney

I just cannot get my head around the fact that on one floor of a hospital specialists will spend hours and hours attempting to save a premature baby's life, while on the floor below other specialists are deliberately extinguishing life. There is something very very wrong here and doctors are in the thick of it.