Following an undercover investigation into abortion by the Daily Telegraph, Nadine Dorries MP has called for a reform of UK abortion law.
The investigation uncovered the practice of gender selective abortions in a number of clinics, and has cast a wider question over how or even whether abortion laws are being followed.
Ms Dorries has now suggested that the Abortion Act 1967 needs changing as it is “a badly drafted piece of legislation”.
Under the Act, abortion is illegal unless is falls within certain exemptions. Under Grounds C, which is the exemption most often used, abortion may only be performed if continuing the pregnancy puts the mother’s (or her existing children’s) mental and physical health at greater risk than if she has an abortion.
Yet critics have claimed that there is little evidence to suggest that this is a correct assumption in most cases, and that we now have abortion on demand in practice.
Ms Dorries said:
“When agreeing to an abortion two doctors have to sign a statutory document to comply with the wording of the Act, ‘in good faith’. Some would argue that on that basis, almost every abortion which takes place in the UK is illegal.
“Do doctors really believe ‘in good faith’ that every abortion they carry out meets the criteria of the Act and more importantly, complete statutory documents to that effect?
Responding to the Telegraph’s findings, Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies wrote to all independent sector abortion providers reminding them that any doctor breaking the 1967 Act could be subject to life-time imprisonment, and that those who knowingly falsified statutory documents, such as abortion authorisation documents, could be prosecuted for perjury.
The clinics exposed by the Daily Telegraph are now under investigation by the police, and the three doctors identified by the newspaper could be struck off by the General Medical Council.
Ms Dorries said:
“Hopefully the Telegraph investigation and the public attention it has attracted will accelerate the need to reform the Act in its entirety, to re-visit the upper time limit at which abortion takes place and to provide doctors with stronger safeguards and protection from prosecution.”
“In the meantime, every doctor in the UK who carries out abortions today is in an extremely vulnerable position. The spotlight is full on abortion practice.”
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