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Published by Socialist Action, PO Box 50, London N1 2XP Typeset/designed/printed by Lithoprint Ltd (TU) 01-249 7560
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CONTENTS a
; Introduction p2 Labour andthe Alton bill p3 How Labour MPs voted p10 No reductions intime limits p11 Abortion: the existing legislation p16
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INTRODUCTION
THE ALTON bill, and the campaign in response to it, differs from previous attempts to restrict the 1967 Abortion Act in two ways.
First, unlike previous anti-abortion bills where the attack centred on restricting the grounds for legal abortion, Alton's bill focusses on reducing the time limits. While in previous campaigns, and in the pro-choice movement generally, the argument in favour of abortion rights has always considered the question of time limits, it has not been the subject of the type of intensive debate faced around Alton.
The attitude to foetal ‘viability’, advances in medical technology, as well as the credence given by newspapers like the Guardian to the dishonest case of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child, have created confusion, even among those who consider themselves pro-choice, on the question of time limits.
The arguments against any reduction in time limits have become the crucial ones to defeating this attack.
Secondly, at the start of this campaign the TUC, many individual trade unions and the Labour Party had already adopted clear, comprehensive and unambiguous policy on abortion rights. Partly as a result, the breadth and scale of the response to the Alton’s attack on abortion rights has been unprecedented.
Thousands have been out on the streets, in meetings, and protested in other ways.
Twenty two national unions have affiliated or supported the campaign, not simply in words but in deeds. The second reading of the bill was met with mass protest, 10,000 attended a rally in London, and torchlight demonstration. Union journals have turned over their pages to the arguments against Alton.
Yet, despite this, 55 Labour MPs defied party policy and, more importantly the interests of women, and either voted for Alton’s bill or abstained on it. This failure by Labour MPs to vote in support of a womans right to choose has been widely justified, by forces from Neil Kinnock to many on the left, on the grounds that abortion is a matter of ‘conscience. The ‘conscience’ being defended however, is not that of individual women making the choice on whether to continue with a pregnancy, but that of mainly male MPs. Party conference has specifically and massively adopted policy that voting against a woman's right to choose is not an issue of ‘conscience’ for anyone but the woman concerned.
The authors of this pamphlet are members of the steering committee of the Fight Alton's Bill campaign. The arguments they address are those which have confronted activists up and down the country. The core of the position they put is that while there may be many who do support abortion rights who are not socialists, those who do not support abortion rights do not have the right to describe themselves as socialists.
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LABOUR AND THE ALTON BILL By Anne Kane IF DAVID ALTON'S anti-abortion bill has had one positive and progressive effect ithas been to harden the resolve of thousands of women to change the structure of power within the labour movement whereby it is tolerated that a small handful of Labour MPs on 2éand January ushered Alton's bill safely through its second reading.
Despite years of what we believed had been successful campaigning, given that Alton’s majority was only 45 votes it is he who owes thanks to these 55 Labour MPs. The possibility that habour MPs, with contempt for policy and accountability, might help bring into existence the first successful attack on the 1967 Abortion Act, raises the most fundamental issues of power and representation within the labour movement which wom not afford to let pass. en can The 55 Labour MPs who either voted for or abstained on the second reading of the bill showed equal contemp t for the opinions of women, clear in the growth of the Fight Alton's Bill Campaig munating in the thousands participating cu in the day of action on 2lst January -- and for the overwhelming resolve of previous Labour Party confere ncluding the 1985 conference. There nces, women had believed that, by am of 5,305,00 to 611,000 votes, they had put ajority an end to the grossly misnamed ‘consc} ence’ vote for abortion. Instead, simply as if that vote had never been aken, Labour MPs were instrumental to the secure passage of the bill.
These MPs, and with them the par y as a whole, had the opportunity and responsibility to lead the fight to defeat this bill. By their vote alone the bill could
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have been defeated outright at the second reading. Moreover, as with Corrie, this bill is introduced when there is a clear Conservative majority in parliament, and when women should be able to take the support of Labour MPs as the starting point in their campaign to cut into that majority. In addition Labour MPs could have been in no doubt that 1985 conference spelled out which way they should vote.
A Labour vote against Alton on 22nd January would not only have been in Ime with party policy in defence of the right of women to control their own bodies, it could have won the active support of many women, and seen Labour leading a successful fight against a bill which, though not government inspired, has the support of a majority of Tory MPs and which Thatcher has said she will support should it come back in an amended form.
Instead their show of disregard for the concerns of women can only lose Labour support: in Scotland, for instance, the voting record of Labour MPs, where 23 out of 50 (of whom only one is a woman, who voted against Alton) either voted for or abstained on the bill, contrasts sharply with that of the Liberals, of whom 6 out of 7 voted against.
Obviously the first priority is, through every existing means possible, to bring the greatest pressure to ensure all Labour MPs vote against the bill in future stages —- through building the mass action which FAB is organising, combined with specific pressure inside the party to bring Labour MPs into line — including the demands for a whip and deselection.
This is even more urgent given that ‘compromise’ amendments — of 22/24 weeks — may arise out of the committee stage, a reduction which it is known even more Labour MPs have sympathy with.
Secondly we must ensure that such possibilities never arise again. This means completely reorganising the structure of power and representation within the labour movement to allow the direct integration of women and our concerns. Labour faces a massive contradiction ~- policy on abortion is very good, Labour claims to want to ‘Listen to Women’, and for the moment Kinnock has declared his personal opposition to any attack on the 1967 Act.
Yet all moves towards greater representation of women and a powerful Labour women's organisation, as well as procedures to ensure Labour MPs respect policy -- such as applying a three line whip -- have been vehemently ‘ opposed by the Labour leadership. Abortion is written off as a matter of 'conscience’ (of, mostly male, MPs) and women are expected to understand and be satisfied with declarations of support from the leader and policies which are meaningless.
The whole history of struggles over abortion legislation shows that transforming the structure of power in the labour movement, including the idea that MPs have a privelaged right to ‘conscience’ decisions, is fundamental to defending and extending the present laws.
A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE SINCE OCTOBER 1975, when Labour Party annual conference, for the first time
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in its history, discussed the issue of abortion and decided in favour of abortion on request on the NHS women have been aware that that was not the end of the matter. abortion bill at its second reading in February of that year. But one year later, when the view of conference was evidently well known, even more — 116 Labour MPs — voted for the reconvening of the select committee, with its clear intention to attack abortion rights. Neither did clear policy in defence of the right of women to decide what to do when faced with unwanted pregnancy prevent Labour MPs giving assistance to subsequent anti-abortion bills.
The explanation for this lay in Labour’s defence of the notion that MPs have a right to an individual or 'conscience’ decision in voting on abortion. That is, that regardless of conference or constituency policy MPs could vote as they wished — the party would not apply a whip. Conference votes were at best reduced toa moral guideline to MPs.
Such a notion of course empties even the formal committment of Labour to defence of women’s rights and interests of all content. Support for the idea that abortion is different, that MPs should have a right to an individual decision, reaches deep into the party however. Only on judicial murder is a similar free vote extended. More tolerance is extended to voting against party policy, the views of women, and the general consensus of the left, on this issue than on vir-
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tually any other. When three members of the Campaign Group of MPs failed to vote against Alton, barely a murmur was heard. Had three members refused to support the health workers or crossed the Ford's picket line, one can only guess at the justified outrage and condemnation! Abortion, however, is different.
In the name of defending their nght to a ‘conscience’ vote Labour MPs have voted to remove that right from millions of individual women.
Similar ‘conscientious’ concern about the fate of women when abortion is severly restricted or legal, is ignored by these reactionary MPs. In the three years 1952-54 153 deaths of women were redistered as caused by abortion (compared to 14 in 1979-81). Even earher in 1933, in the context of sharp economic crisis, the deaths of 463 women were officially attributed to abortion. Since help ing to procure, perform or having an abortion was a criminal offence we shall never know the total nurmber of wormen whom died or suffered due to illegal abortions What about the moral concern for those women, who risked death or injury in. an effort to avoid unwanted births before 1967, or the thousands around the world today who die or suffer unnecessarily through illegal abortion? As every survey ever conducted shows, simply banning abortion and criminalising women does not stop abortion taking place. It merely changes the conditions, increases the pain, suffering and shame for women, and to the extent it decreases abortion ensures a nse in the number of unwanted and neglected children.
Prior to the safety allowed, with the permission of doctors, under the 1967 Act, abortion took place with the use of abortificient drugs, vaginal douches, or visits to illegal abortionists.
Also, as in the 1930s, rates of abortions remain high during periods of austerity and of unemployment, poverty, poor health and social services. Again, in 1988, increasing numbers of working class women simply judge having a child, or another child, as economically impossible.
The moral issues involved in this are somehow missed by these Labour MPs.
The job of those claiming to represent the working class should be to fight for improvements in health and welfare services, in housing and employment and in abortion facilities and the law which will give these women some real choice — including that of early abortion where possible. , Were Alton’s Bill, or any other such restrictive measure, to come into law those most affected would be amongst the most vulnerable groups of women.
They would be the very young women who discover they are pregnant relatively late, or are too afraid to tell anyone of their condition, or simply do not know where to go for an abortion, are most easily frightened off by anti-abortion doctors or cannot raise the money for anon-NHS abortion. Young women, 16-24 years, are those most likely to have an abortion, and teenage women make up 50 per cent of those having abortions after the 17th week of pregnancy. These women are predominantly working class. Others will be older and may have failed to recognise pregnancy, possibly mistaking it for the menopause. Some will be women who had to wait until later in their pregnancy for the results of tests for conditions such as spina bifida and Down's syndrome. Some will be women coming in desperation to this country from their normal country of
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residence where abortion is either illegal or very restricted — living proof ofthe lengths to which women will go to have some control over their lives.
And of course many of all these women will be having later abortions than otherwise necessary because of NHS waiting lists : a report of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1984 showed that 20 per cent of women having NHS abortions after the 20th week have been referred before the end of their lath week of pregnancy.
Long waiting lists and restricted access are major reasons tor the high number of abortions which take place in the private sector. The proportion taking place in the NHS has fallen steadily since the passing of the 1967 Act: in 1970 62 per cent of all abortions were carried out in the NHS, today more that half of all abortions take place in private clinics. In addition the rate varies widely around the country — the main reason being the ‘conscientious objection’ of senior consultant gynaecologists or other medical staff in the area.
Against all the basic principles of the socialist movement, Labour MPs who support Alton are saying that abortion, and particularly late abortion, is not a social responsibility or that the circumstances women find themselves in or choices they make do not have social causes.
Socialists have to register the awareness that the right of women to abortion is an issue of fundamental socialist principle: that it is not something different, on which MPs can vote as they choose, regardless of party policy, the suffering it will inflict or the decisions it removes from those who will be most affected.
LABOUR’S RECORD: REMOVING THE CONSCIENCE CLAUSE IT WAS FOR this reason that women fought to cement policy for the right to choose with the removal of the option of a free vote.
Labour's record of opposition to the right of women to control their own bodies is a long and inglorious one. In 1924 the Labour Minister of Health, John Wheatley, refused to change an order against birth control advice being given at welfare centres, ademand supported by the Cooperative Women’s Guild and by birth control pioneers such as Stella Browne. In 1926 Labour MPs helped defeat a bill coming from a Labour MP which would have made public funds available to provide information on birth control to married women.
It was left to Liberal MP, David Steel, to introduce the 1967 Act. Since it was introduced there have been 13 attempts by men in parliament to restrict it and only one to liberalise it. It has been subject to more consistent and well organised attack than any other piece of relatively recent legislation.
Labour MPs have been prominent among those attacking it. Most infamous was James White, Labour MP for Glasgow Pollok, the truth of whose claims to be reflecting the views of a constituency with a large Catholic vote, can be judged by his deselection in subsequent years and replacement by an MP who recently voted against Alton. The battle over the White Bill led to the vote at 1975 Labour Party conference in favour of abortion on request en the NHS and similar
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resolutions being carried at the TUC women’s conference and TUC congress.
Despite this, in July 1979 at the second reading of the Corrie Bill, passed by 242 votes to 98, 46 Labour MPs voted for Corrie, and many others failed to vote or abstained. In Scotland only seven Labour MPs voted against.
On the other side, policy in the trade union movement, built on the foundations laid in the fight on the White Bill, led to the TUC opposing Cornie and calling a national demonstration against the bill. The demonstration of oppostion by over 50,000 in October 1979 was without a doubt key to defeating Corrie.
Hoping to put an end to Labour MPs linking up with Tories and others to arrogantly parade their ‘conscientious’ opposition to women’s rights to control their own bodies -- meanwhile shrugging off their responsibility for the health and welfare of women — that women fought to end the conscience vote following the defeat of Corrie.
This campaign was successful when, in 1985, by a vote of 5,305,000 for to 611,000 against conference agreed to ‘abandoning the idea that there can be “conscience clauses” or free votes on ... a woman's right to express her individual conscience as to when and whether to have a child’ This overwhelming vote was all the more remarkable — and unambiguous — since it came in the face of opposition from the NEC which recommended a vote against. Finally women could expect to be able to rely on at least the votes of Labour MPs in any future battles.
Things were not quite so simple —- or democratic. Following the rebellion by 55 Labour MPs on 22nd January we find that, having argued and won for policy that respected the rights of women, and then taken on and won on the ‘consclence clause’ which, we all believed, was the legitimation for MPs flouting policy, that actually all of this does not matter because the standing orders of the PLP recognise a free vote on abortion. Hardly surprising that women are beginning to think these rules are made up as we go along!
Moreover, there was never any attempt to respect or implement the overwhelming decision of the 1985 conference. On the contrary, an NEC statement to 1987 annual conference explained, in a clause inserted in the document at the last minute, ‘Labour stands by the Abortion Act. And, whilst respecting the right of conscience of our party members, we wil] defend that Act, in keeping with the established policy of the Labour Party’ In other words, we will respect that policy until it threatens to become meaningful, when we will ignore it because we respect the right of a few privelaged individuals to impose suffering and remove choice from all women.
GIVING WOMEN POWER WHILE CAMPAIGNING to reform this latest let-out clause, women in the labour movement are now campaigning for 1985 policy, and all other policy on this issue, to be respected — for a whip to be applied in all future voting and for constituency parties to deselect MPs who flout policy in contempt of women's interests and think they can get away with it.
The Labour leadership is trying to hold together something essentially con-
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tradictory, the essence of which is the NEC statement. There is a clear wish to improve Labour's electoral support from women. Therefore on the one hand there is stated opposition to attacks on abortion — for the rally against the Alton Bill organised by FAB on alst January Kinnock sent a message of support saying ‘I have always supported the ‘woman's right to choose”’ and the effect given to that principle by David Steel’s Abortion Act. I believe that the Alton Bill, if it becomes law, will make it more difficult for women in the most distressing personal circumstances... In my view there can be no justification for that and consequently I cannot support the time limits proposed’
In the same vein Labour has instituted the welcome post of a Minister for Women and is presently organising ‘Labour Listens to Women’ events around the country.
Similarly in the unions, concern about membership figures has encouraged the type of campaigns NUPE and the TGWU are waging, which in turn involve a new attention to the interests and concerns of women workers.
Side by side with this is the refusal to take steps to ensure that MPs have to respect and defend policy on issues so central to women as the right to abortion. And on a broader level every single serious step to give women some real power in the Labour Party, and allow women to directly campaign for their views, has been opposed by this leadership. The demands of the Labour Women's Action Committee -- now of the whole Labour women's organisation — for simple rights such as that women should be able to elect their own NEC representatives, are opposed. The gain of ‘one woman on every shortlist’ has been undermined by the NEC.
Inside the Labour Party the leadership is violently opposed to greater power and representation for women. Such a change would have a hugely radicalising effect on all the policies of the party — even the right to elect our own representatives on to the NEC would completely change the profile of women’s demands as well as shift the balance of left and right on the NEC.
Labour can not have it both ways, however. Women will not give support toa party which is not even able to defend their rights to decide whether to have a child or not. Given that, after so many years of struggle, all 55 Labour MPs who ingnored party policy are men and that not one Labour woman MP failed to vote against Alton more, not less, women will be demanding a complete change in the distribution of power within the party. They only have to ask: is it concievable, with a powerful and decision-making women's organisation and greater representation for women at all levels, that Labour MPs could have betrayed women as they did on 22nd January?
The days of tolerating this are long gone. The next step for women in the Labour movement to defeat Alton is to build the maximum support for the FAB Campaign. All those in the labour movement opposed to Alton must demand that Labour MPs are forced to respect policy at future stages of the bill.
We must ensure that no Labour MP is again complicit in attacking our rights by campaigning for a women’s organisation with real power -— so that our campaigning can not be ignored or our interests subordinated to the ‘conscience’ of MPs.
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HOW LABOUR MPS VOTED at the second reading of the Alton bill on Friday 22nd January
FOR the bill John Battle (Leeds W)
Thomas McAvoy (Glasgow Rutherglen)
Stuart Bell (Middlesborough)
Calum MacDonald (Western Isles)
Jeremy Bray (Motherwell S)
John McFall (Dumbarton)
Ronald Campbell (Blyth Valley)
Kevin McNamara (Hull N)
Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington)
Michael Martin (Glasgow Springburn)
Dennis Canavan (Falkirk W)
Bruce Millan (Glasgow Govan)
Tom Clarke (Monklands W)
Alfred Morris (Manchester Wythenshaw)
Frank Cook (Stockton N)
Gordon Oakes (Halton)
Stan Crowther (Rotherham)
William O'Brien (Normanton)
John Cummings (Easington)
Robert Parry (Riverside)
Lawrence Cunliffe (Leigh)
Tom Pendry (Stalybridge and Hyde)
Don Dixon (Jarrow)
John Reid (Motherwell N)
Frank Field (Birkenhead)
George Robertson (Hamilton)
Bruce Grocott (The Wrekin)
Ted Rowlands (Merthyr Tydfil and Peter Hardy (Wentworth)
Rhymney)
Sean Hughes (Knowsley S)
John Smith (Monklands E)
David Lambie (Cunningham S)
Jack Thompson (Wansbeck)
James Lamond (Oldham Central and Tony Worthington (Clydebank)
Royton)
Geoffrey Lofthouse (Pontefract and Castleford)
Labour MPs who ABSTAINED or DID NOT VOTE
Tam Dayell (Linlithgow)
Dennis Howell (Birmingham Small Donald Dewer (Glasgow Garscadden)
Heath)
Dick Douglas (Dunfermline W)
Barry Jones (Alyn and Deeside)
Patrick Duffy (Sheffield Attercliffe)
Gerald Kaufmann (Manchester Gorton)
George Galloway (Glasgow Hillhead)
Javid Marshall (Glasgow Shettleston)
Thomas Graham (Renfrew W and Alan McKay (Barnsley West and Inverclyde)
Penistone)
Roy Hattersley (Birmingham Paul Murphy (Torfaen)
Sparkbrook)
Allan Roberts (Bootle)
Doug Henderson (Newcastle upon ohn Home Robertson (E Lothian)
Tyne N)
Harold Walker (Doncaster C)
Norman Hogy (Cumbernauld and ames Wray (Glasgow Provan)
Kilsyth)
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NO REDUCTIONS IN TIME LIMITS By Jude Woodward
DAVID Alton’s Abortion (Amendment) Bill differs from previous attempts to amend the 1967 Abortion Act in focussing on a proposal to introduce a lower time limit for legal abortion, rather than on the ‘social clause’. The so-called ‘social clause’ extends the possibility of legal abortion, with a doctor's consent, to virtually any woman, and was the subject of previous attempts to change the 1967 Abortion Act from James White, Bernard Braine and John Corrie. Opposition to an amendment to this clause has been virtually unanimous. However the issue of a lower time limit has revealed important confusions and divisions among pro-choice forces.
While Alton's initial proposal to limit legal abortion to 18 weeks has found lit- * tle support beyond hardened anti-abortionists, an amended proposal for a 24 or 22 week limit has been welcomed by a surprisingly wide range of organisations.
Those supporting a 24 week limit include many individuals and organisa- . tions which consider themselves ‘pro-choice’ Their arguments for a 24 week limit rest upon advances in medical technology which have allowed premature babies to be kept alive at a much earlier age. They argue such a change in time limits 1s inevitable, and furthermore this will simply bring the law in line with reality. Very few abortions take place after 24 weeks, and therefore they argue that such a reduction in time limits would make no real difference to abortion rights.
Of course many of those who support a 24 week limit are actually opposed to all abortion and will support any measure to limit its availability. No arguments or reason will prevail on such proponents of lower time limits, as they actually
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oppose all abortion.
But among those who consider themselves ‘pro-choice’ and yet favour a lower time limit are some who have been very important in getting the present legal rights on to the statute book. Among the most influential of these is the medical profession itself, In particular the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have indicated they consider that the foetus should be considered ‘viable’ at 24 weeks, and hence that this should be the cutoff point for decisions on abortion. Both the BMA and the RCOG have supported the 1967 Abortion Act, and while they maintain their ‘professional’ right to be the final arbiters of whether a woman should have an abortion or not rather than supporting a woman's right to choose, neither of these can be held to be antiabortion organisations.
VIABILITY THESE DOCTORS present a number of arguments in support of their position. The most common is that by around 26 weeks the foetus's lungs have developed, itis theoretically capable of breathing air and therefore of living independently of the womb, and should therefore be considered a human being in its own right, The development of the lungs is in fact just as arbitrary a point at which to say that a foetus has separate rights as any other sign of physical development. In fact it is ludicrous to discuss the matter in these terms at all. A potential independent human life evidently exists from the moment of conception.
This is not the issue, the real issue it whether or not a woman has to accept that this potential human life should develop inside her body, and then be forced to take on all the emotional and physical responsibility for bringing a new human being into the world.
This is the fundamental issue that has to be dealt with in any discussion of abortion rights. And there really is no direct comparison with any other situation that human beings have to confront. While women often find themselves entirely responsible for the lives of children, the elderly, and others needing care — including perfectly healthy adult men — women’s caring role is entirely socially determined. And can be eliminated by the extension of social services, childcare provision and so on.
But the foetus can only develop inside the mother's body. Therefore if the woman does not wish this to happen, the only way of changing the situation is to remove the foetus from her body. Put bluntly, this is what a ‘woman’s right to choose’ is all about. Is it justifiable that society should say to a woman, any woman, at any point in a pregnancy, I'm sorry, you have no choite, you must allow this foetus to develop inside you?
Of course it is most unlikely, for a series of biological and hormonal! reasons connected with pregnancy, that a woman would want to terminate a pregnancy beyond a certain point. And in the case of very late terininations a woman would
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need serious and sensitive medical and emotional counselling before taking such a step. But nonetheless, if a woman is clear that she wants a pregnancy to end, that she is not prepared for her body to be host to someone or something else, then this should be her night.
The potential viability of a foetus outside the womb, should not affect a woman's right to decide whether she wants a particular foetus in her womb or not.
However a proposed amendment to the 1967 Abortion Act introducing a time limit of 24 or 22 weeks is not really anything to do with the arguments about ‘viability’ Abortion of a ‘viable’ foetus is already illegal under the 1929 Infant Life Preservation Act — doctors are already legally bound to judge — on the basis of the degree of development of the foetus, any abnormality, the health of the woman and so on — whether or not a foetus is viable. The present law presumes any ‘normal’ foetus is viable by 28 weeks, although abortion can be carried out after this point in specific cases of severe foetal abnormality where a live birth is ruled out, or where the mother's life is in danger.
The introduction of a 24 or 22 week time limit into the abortion law would mean instead of judging ‘viability’, doctors would have to decide whether the women were 24/22 weeks pregnant or not, independently of their judgement on foetal viability. In other words, the proposal is that an arbitrary time limit should be set upon legal abortion, which is nothing to do with judging whether the foetus is viable. Rather than making an informed medical judgement on whether or not the foetus is ‘viable’ doctors would be asked to make an educated guess about whether a woman is 23 and a half weeks pregnant or 24 weeks pregnant.
However it is also the case that the whole idea of 'viability’ is being abused by these arguments. Only a tiny proportion of 26 week births have the remotest possibility of survival, and it is ridiculous to call them ‘viable’. This implies that they could survive independently, when in fact what has occurred is that medical science and technology can substitute for many of the conditions that exist in the womb. Early births, even after 28 weeks, the present time limit, can only survive with a gigantic intervention of medical technology to maintain body temperature, force the lungs to operate, fend off disease, and feed intravenously, force the throat and digestive tract to open and stay open and so on. In fact the potential brain damage, psychological trauma and long term impact on infants who go through this for their first six months is only just beginning to be examined.
Some such early births can be kept alive through massive medical resourses, but some of the ethical questions posed as to whether the medical profession should do this are greater than those posed by abortion itself. It raises some of the same issues posed by the possibility of keeping ‘alive’ artificially those in permanent deep coma, for example asa result of severe and irreversible brain damage. These cannot be reduced to the issue of ‘viability’ and nor can that of the survival or not of a 26 week foetus.
Some doctors have also argued that since advances in medical technology have allowed the survival of a proportion of 26 week premature births, it places
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an unreasonable strain upon nursing and medical staff to be involved both in the struggle to maintain a hfe at 26 weeks, and 26 week terminations.
FACILITIES
IT SHOULD be noted that the conscience clause for the medical profession means that no nurse or doctor has to be involved in abortion at any point if they object to it. But it is true that this does not entirely deal with the problem. The solution is tied to greater funding for the NHS to allow clinics dealing with abortion to be completely separated out from other gynaecological matters.
Many women who have had even early abortion on the NHS have found themselves in wards shared with women desperately seeking a cure to their infertility, or cases of early miscarriage. This is distressing for all the women concerned and must be for the nursing staff as well, but is no argument against abortion rights.
Finally, if we once allow technological progress as an argument for limiting abortion, then evidently each step forward in such medical technology could lead to further limits — until all abortion were illegal?
The argument that a reduction in time limits to 24 weeks is inevitable and correct has also gained ground because of the results of two opinion polls which showed a high proportion of women in favour of a reduction in the time limit for legal abortion.
Two issues have to be taken into account when assessing the results of these opinion polls.
Firstly similar polls which have asked women whether they support the 1967 Abortion Act have received an incredibly high proportion of ‘yes' responses, Equally polls which have asked whether women are dissatisfied with the terms of the law have received a very high ‘no’ response.
Secondly, while there is a certain emotional response which can be elicited from women and men by the pictures circulated by SPUC and Life of a much magnified 19 week foetus, which the responses in opinion polls reflect, when women are asked about specific cases of late abortion their responses tend to be that each abortion should be allowed.
There 1s also extreme hostility to the idea of criminalising either women or doctors for abortion at virtually any point. When the French courts tried to prosecute a 14 year old girl, who had been raped, for a very late abortion — well beyond the present British legal limit -- she was acquitted amid public outcry against prosecution.
WHO WOULD BE AFFECTED?
THE FINAL ARGUMENT for a reduction in the time limit to 24 weeks has been that it wil make no real difference. In 1986, it is pointed out, only 29 women had abortions carried out after the 24th week, and in virtually every one of these
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cases the operation could go ahead even under a changed law, due to the exceptions for foetal abnormality.
But this is not the whole story. A reduction in the time limit for legal abortion to 24 weeks, especially in the form of an amendment to the 1967 Abortion Act rather than to the Infant Life Preservation Act, would affect virtually all abortions performed after 22 weeks, and many of those performed after 20 weeks.
In the 20 years since the passing of the Abortion Act there have been a series of attempts by anti-abortionists to prosecute doctors for carrying out abortion outside the framework of the 1967 Act. All these attempted prosecutions have failed, however doctors performing abortion are keenly aware ofa powerful anti-abortion lobby, well-organised in the medical profession at all levels, and quite willing to spy on doctors and exploit any opening to use the courts to stop abortions.
Under the terms of the present Infant Life Preservation Act abortion effectively becomes illegal when it is considered that the foetus is capable of sustaining independent life, unless the life of the mother is threatened.
However in the case of a doctor carrying out an abortion later than the 28th week — for example if an error had been made as to the date of conception — the onus would be on the courts to prove that a criminal abortion had taken place.
A change which introduced a time limit into the Abortion Act itself, would make all abortion carried out after the legal time limit automatically a criminal offence unless the doctor — and woman herself — could prove otherwise. In order to be safe from prosecution doctors would have to take even more precautions than they do now to ensure they did not accidentally place themselves in breach of the law.
Even under the present law doctors will not generally carry out abortion after the estimated 26th week of pregnancy. With a 24 week limit written into the Abortion Act itself doctors would protect themselves by imposing an actual limit of 20 to 22 weeks.
Rather than 29 women, this would affect up to 2000 women each year who presently have legal abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy. Of these a high proportion will be women in areas where the local consultants are anti-abortion, therefore forcing women to eventually seek help in other parts of the country.
Other women most affected will be young women who do not know or admit to themselves that they are pregnant, older women who mistake the signs of pregnancy for the menopause and women from such countries as Ireland or Spain who are forced to travel to Britain because abortion is still illegal.
No woman wants to have a late abortion. While the anti-abortionists’ cant about post-abortion trauma in the first four months is so much rubbish, abortion after 16 weeks is an unpleasant and distressing operation. Women have late abortions because they are in real need, because it is the only reasonable choice they can make, and they have the right to make that choice.
Any reduction in the present legal time limit for abortion will seriously affect many thousands of women's lives over the coming years. It must be resisted, and there can be no complacency.
a
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16
ABORTION:
The Existing Legislation Abortion is still part of the criminal law -. the 1967 Abortion Act does not give abortion on request, it simply permits it under certain conditions.
Abortion is governed by the following laws:
The Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (sections 58 and 59)
This makes it illegal for a pregnant woman to abort or attempt to abort herself, or for any other person to procure, supply or administer any poison, instrument or noxious substance to a woman intending to procure an abortion.
The Infant Life Preservation Act 1929 This states:
a. the crime of “child destruction” is committed by any person who, with the intention to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive, does any act to destroy that life. b. the only exception to a. is an abortion done in good faith for the purpose only of preserving the life of the mother. c. a foetus of 28 weeks or more is presumed viable and capable of being born alive. (This Act does not apply in Scotland)
The Abortion Act 1967 This makes abortion legal when done by a doctor, if 2 doctors are of the opinion, formed in good faith: a. that the continuation of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman or, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated. b. that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.
Section 2 allows doctors to take into account the pregnant woman's ‘actual or reasonably foreseeable environment’
NOTE: David Alton’s bill is an amendment to insert a time limit into the 1967 Act.
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SOME USEFUL ADDRESSES: MEMES soe Fight Alton’s Bill Campaign Wesley House, 4 Wild Court London WC2B 5AU 01-831 6838
National Abortion Campaign Wesley House, 4 Wild Court London WC2B 5AU 01-405 4801
Labour Women’s Action Committee c/o 12 Chatham Row Bath, Avon
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