Politics
Change the law to make early abortion easier
Published 01 November 2007
Women should be given the flexibility to make the best decisions they can in often impossibly difficult circumstances
Forty years ago, parliament passed the 1967 Abortion Act and made the civilised decision to permit abortions up to 28 weeks, under strict conditions and with the signature of two doctors. Despite fears then that the conditions might prove cumbersome, making late abortions inevitable, the safeguards have remained. The only change, in 1990, has been a restrictive one, lowering the upper limit from 28 to 24 weeks.
Few pieces of legislation had been longer debated or more hotly contested (women's suffrage is, significantly, one contender). Six earlier private-member attempts to reform the archaic and punitive abortion laws had been talked out. Despite a pre-Second World War recommendation to parliament that the law should be reformed, no government had had the courage to face the religious and moral outrage they knew would follow introducing an abortion bill.
It fell to David Steel, then a 29-year-old Liberal MP, to take up the issue when he was placed high in the ballot for private members' bills. He has said since that he was motivated by revulsion at the damage caused by criminal and self-induced abortions and the clear class and income divide which determined those women who could buy themselves safe medical terminations, and those who had to risk becoming one of the 50 or so women each year who died as a result of "septic and incomplete abortion".
Recently he confirmed that there should be no weakening of the principles of the 1967 Act, and further observed that it should be easier to obtain earlier abortions and more difficult to obtain late ones.
David Steel has earned the right to be heard on abortion. His early campaigning has kept him in the front line of defending the act against its many attackers, including from those who believe it appropriate to lace their moral fervour with vitriol. He has received hate mail in abundance and been accused of murder. He is more than entitled to his rationally expressed view that the commons select committee on science and technology is performing a public service by considering medical questions of late abortions and fetal viability.
But Steel and any member of parliament expecting to hear objective scientific truth from that committee will be disappointed. In the past few days it has emerged that six "medical experts" who gave evidence to the committee had links with the Christian Medical Fellowship, which has a declared opposition to abortion. None, including the director of an anti-abortion organisation, declared this important bias. All have been called to give medical evidence.
Expect more moral prejudices masquerading as science in the coming weeks when the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill is introduced; more statistical distortions about escalating numbers of abortions (legalising the procedure was bound to increase uptake); more misinformation about fetal viability.
Abortion will always be fiercely opposed, notably by men and women whose lives have never been touched by the anguish of unwanted pregnancy. There is no new law, or revision of the current one, that can both relieve the social misery Steel sought to redress in 1967 and not offend the beliefs of many. But we should be honest about the law as it now stands. It already respects the moral consciences of medical staff who do not wish to be involved in terminations. Nor do we have "abortion on demand" or anything like it. We have a very bureaucratic procedure which gives women too little rather than too much control over their bodies. We do not need to make abortion more difficult; we need to make it easier. Those who place limits in the way of early abortions create agonising decisions for both women and medical staff.
Britain's decision 40 years ago to enact legislation to ensure that rich and poor women should have equal access to medical help was compassionate and progressive. That act might now need amending. We should start by reducing bureaucratic obstacles. And, while the aim should be to minimise the number of late abortions, we should leave sufficient flexibility for women to make the best decisions they can in often impossibly difficult circumstances.
President Putin's lunch money
Vladimir Putin has not enjoyed a kindly press in the west of late, yet the revelation that the Russian president's income for last year was a relatively meagre £40,000 stands as a rebuke to many in British public life. MPs here, who totted up an £87.6m expenses bill for 2006/7, are paid 50 per cent more.
Still there are regular cries that it is not enough; that our tribunes of the people are sacrificing far greater sums that would surely be theirs in the private sector. (The recent study which found that many former MPs are "commercially unemployable at senior management level" was a little embarrassing in this context.)
How many splendid lunches at Wiltons or the Ritz - two of the places where the government's spending watchdog, Sir John Bourn, was accustomed to unfurl a napkin at public expense - could President Putin afford on so modest a stipend?
The salary of £100,000 suggested by one Tory MP - let alone the £140,000 minimum earned by top civil servants - must seem as unreachable a fortune to him as those of his countrymen who have taken to snapping up English football clubs like so many trinkets. In their arrogance about financial matters, too many at Westminster and Whitehall seem to be taking inspiration from the words attributed to Sir Hartley Shawcross: "We are the masters now." We would prefer they think of themselves as "servants of the people" - and be happy to be paid accordingly.
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