Why not make late abortions illegal?

Marie Stopes International (MSI) puts forward the case for why late abortions should not be made illegal.

There are women for whom recent proposals to ‘tighten the time limit on abortion’ would force a choice between completing an unwanted pregnancy or illegal, potentially life-threatening alternatives. The women are those with unwanted pregnancies at 20-24 weeks.

Less than two per cent of the abortions performed in England and Wales last year were for women between 20 and 24 weeks gestation. But this still accounted for almost 4,000 women, approximately 20 per cent of whom were teenagers. Marie Stopes International (MSI) centres regularly provide consultation and treatment to about a third of these women.

Late abortion
We find that abortions after 20 weeks are usually a consequence of one or more of the following:

1. Symptoms obscured
Some women do not discover that they are pregnant until an advanced stage. They may show no visible signs of pregnancy and attribute lack of menstruation to adolescence, the onset of menopause, the contraceptive pill, recent pregnancy, or to stress at work. Teenagers sometimes go into denial or panic on discovering their pregnancy and hide it from their parents.

"Until last Wednesday I had no idea I was pregnant. By that time it was 22 weeks. If the cut off point had been 20 weeks... my life would have been ruined."

2. Procedural delays
Some women encounter delays in receiving an abortion even after they have requested one. Delays include obstructive medical practitioners and protracted waiting times for consultations. In some cases, these delays combine with other circumstances described above and below.

"I decided to go through the NHS which took three weeks to get a consultation date and a further two weeks to do the termination."

3. Circumstances change
Some women find that their circumstances suddenly change during a pregnancy they had previously wanted. They may lose their partner or face sudden financial difficulties affecting their ability to parent existing children. Other factors may also influence a woman’s decision whether circumstances are right for raising a child.

“My partner is violent but when he found out I was pregnant he promised he would get help and change and for a few weeks he did. But he then beat me with a baseball bat… I don’t think it’s right to involve a child in that.”

Abortions are best performed earlier in a pregnancy rather than later. But this does not mean that later abortions should be made illegal.

Safe alternative measures
The safest legislative means of reducing late abortions is to eliminate the delays once a woman has reached her decision. For women in Great Britain, delays can be minimised by enabling nurses to perform early abortion procedures and by removing the outdated requirement for two doctor’s approval.

For women in Northern Ireland, where abortion remains illegal forcing travel to private clinics in England or Wales, delays can be minimised simply by affording them the same rights as women in the rest of Britain.

With less than 30 per cent of general practices offering a full range of contraceptive methods, these legislative measures should accompany improved resources for contraceptive services and for sexual education.

Nevertheless, for the reasons plainly set out above, the need for abortion services between 20 and 24 weeks will always remain.

MSI hopes that the forthcoming Human Tissue and Embryology Bill will be taken as an opportunity for much needed improvements to abortion and contraception services across the whole of the UK, and not hijacked as a means of setting the clock back on women’s rights.

Marie Stopes International, 1 Conway St, Fitzroy Square, London W1T 6LP
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 6200 Fax: +44 (0)20 7034 2370
Email: info@mariestopes.org

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