Hard-Left hijacks the doctors’ union

AS the British Medical Association backs decriminalising late abortion, the Mail has a question. What business is this of the increasingly politicised doctors’ union?

Abortion surely cannot be seen as a mere medical procedure, like a hip replacement, to be regulated by doctors themselves.

Indeed, it raises profound moral, ethical and religious questions which only the British people can decide through their representatives in Parliament.

To treat it otherwise risks trivialising an issue seen by millions – including a great many doctors – as touching on the meaning and sanctity of human life.

But then isn’t it clear this was the intention of the vote’s Left-wing supporters who spoke only of women’s rights, saying abortion should be more easily available?

With more than 500 a day performed in England and Wales, there are powerful reasons to believe access is already too easy, with many couples seeing terminations as just an alternative to contraception.

Meanwhile, decriminalising late abortion could only raise the numbers carried out after the current legal limit of 24 weeks. Yet medical advances mean rising numbers of babies born before this cut-off survive. Doesn’t this suggest the limit should be reduced, not abolished?

But then this vote is just the latest example of the BMA pursuing a Left-wing agenda, at odds with many of its members.

Only yesterday the Mail reported groundless and inflammatory claims by Dr Chaand Nagpaul, who takes over as the union’s chairman tomorrow, that the Tories have deliberately engineered a hospital crisis to pave the way for privatisation. In fact, they are pouring more money into the NHS than any previous government.

If the BMA values doctors’ reputation, it will let them get on with treating patients – and leave the politics to Parliament.