Nadine Dorries MP will on Tuesday launch the official parliamentary campaign to reduce the upper limit for abortion from 24 weeks to 20 weeks when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is debated in the Commons later this month.
Ms Dorries will be supported by consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Vincent Argent, former medical Director of BPAS, and Dr Peter Saunders, General Secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship at a launch at the Commons. Ultrasound pioneer Professor Stuart Campbell will also be backing her campaign.
Britain currently has the most liberal abortion laws in Europe. A termination can be obtained up to 24 weeks of pregnancy - double the limits in France and Germany and six weeks later than in Sweden or Norway.
The number of abortions carried out between 20 and 24 weeks has been rising in recent years. Lowering the limit to 20 weeks will save over 3,000 young lives per year
Ms Dorries will publish a briefing paper, ‘20 Reasons for 20 Weeks’ outlining the case for cutting the present 24-week limit to 20 weeks.
In it, she highlights that public, parliamentary and medical opinion is changing on late abortion. A reduction in the 24-week upper age limit is supported by just under two thirds of MPs, two thirds of GPs, nearly two thirds of the public and more than three-quarters of women.
The briefing paper points to high profile cases of babies surviving below 24 weeks, including Manchester’s Millie McDonagh, born at 22 weeks, and the world’s most premature baby, Amillia Taylor, who was born a week younger, both in October 2006.
