Why Britain must talk about abortion, too

THE abortion debates in the Republic of Ireland have been fascinating to follow — not least because yesterday’s referendum forced the country to have a discussion that involved the latest medical information. We, in Britain, desperately need to do the same.

Our abortion laws are out of date. When they were written in 1967, there was a safe margin between the upper limit for termination, which in most cases was 24 weeks, and the number of weeks at which premature babies could survive.

But as medicine has advanced, the age of viability has got lower and lower, until now this ‘safe margin’ no longer exists.

Today, we are at the ethically questionable point where doctors can try to save the life of a premature baby born at 23 weeks, while, in the same hospital, a woman is legally allowed to undergo an abortion on a foetus of the exact same gestation.

It makes no sense, and — despite being pro-choice — I feel very uncomfortable about this. As, privately, do many doctors.

However, this is not something we openly discuss because, as soon as we try, we are denounced as anti-choice.

Of course, the vast majority of terminations are done at 13 weeks or before, with only a fraction — less than 2 per cent — occurring after 20 weeks. But, even so, this still accounts for about 3,000 terminations a year. That’s getting on for ten a day.

Now consider this: currently, a premature baby born at 21 weeks is unable to survive. At 22 weeks, there is a 1 per cent survival rate. But at 23 weeks, the survival rate increases to between 11 and 40 per cent.

Based on current premature survival rates, it would seem to me that a cut-off of 22 weeks for an abortion would make sense. Or 20 weeks, if we wanted to be cautious — but that should be up for debate.

Yet part of the problem is that as soon as anyone tries to have this discussion, they are drowned out by the pro-choice lobby who see any questioning about abortion as an attack on women’s rights.

We need to have this conversation because all of us — men, as well as women — should have a say on such a complex ethical issue.