The UK’s largest organisation of Christian doctors has expressed concern that the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecologists (RCOG) failed to give full information to a House of Commons Select Committee over current scientific evidence for lowering the upper limit for abortion.
The Science and Technology Select Committee invited submissions from experts and interested parties as part of their work in compiling a report on the latest scientific research into whether babies can survive below the current 24 week gestation period, and whether fetuses can feel pain earlier than 24 weeks.
The committee’s report, expected to be published next week, will be referred to by MPs seeking to amend the law on abortion as part of the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill, which is due to be announced in the Queen’s Speech on 6 November.
Pro-choice MPs have pledged to liberalise the law to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act. This agenda is being supported by Abortion Rights, a national coalition which plans to liberalise the current UK abortion law to bring in abortion on request in the first three months of pregnancy, nurse and home abortion and to resist any lowering of the upper limit.
Abortion Rights work closely with the parliamentary All Party Pro-choice and Sexual Health group and the Voice for Choice coalition of the major abortion providers.
Dr Peter Saunders, General Secretary of Christian Medical Fellowship, which represents 4,500 British doctors, says that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) failed to mention credible scientific research in the area of fetal pain and selected those studies which supported the views of the pro-choice fraternity - that there was no scientific basis for reducing the 24 week limit.
“If there is doubt amongst experts, as there most surely is, then the RCOG should acknowledge that fact and the fetus should be given the benefit of that doubt”, he said.
