About this Petition
The UK has amongst the most liberal abortion practice in the western world. Currently one in three women has an abortion and almost one in four pregnancies ends in abortion. There have been 6.7 million abortions in the UK since the implementation of the 1967 Abortion Act. One abortion happens every three minutes, 600 per day, 200,000 per year. The 2006 figures issued on 19 June show a further annual increase. Abortions are allowed up until 24 weeks under ground C of the Abortion Act and abortions for fetal handicap are allowed until birth.
There is growing evidence that public (and parliamentary) opinion, especially on late abortion, is changing. This change of opinion is the result of several factors:
- More public knowledge about life before birth, especially as highlighted by Professor Stuart Campbell’s high resolution ultrasound videos
- Stories in the media of babies born alive following ‘botched’ abortions
- The rise of the disability rights movement and disaffection with late abortion for fetal handicap – as highlighted by the Joanna Jepson case
- Publicity about doctors being forced against their conscience to refer women for abortion
- Stories in the press of people carrying out late abortions flouting the existing law
- Church leaders making a stand on abortion
- The growing evidence in the medical literature of the links between abortion and mental illness, prematurity and (possibly) breast cancer
- Stories of women damaged by abortion, or coerced into having abortions so as not to be a burden on others
Many doctors are deeply concerned about the number of abortions carried out in this country and are mystified therefore that the BMA’s Medical Ethics Committee is pressing for further liberalisation of the law without apparently either carrying out a proper review of the evidence or consulting the frontline doctors that it is intended to represent. It is even more concerning that the BMA Ethics Committee has published these recommendations in the media ahead of a major debate on abortion at the BMA Annual Representative Meeting in Torquay on Wednesday 27th June.
As a result a number of us have been instrumental in putting together this petition to call for the BMA to reject the recommendations of its Medical Ethics Committee and to conduct a properly evidence-based review that involves full consultation with its members and all frontline doctors.
If you share these concerns then can we encourage you to sign this petition and to draw it to the attention of others?
Thank you
