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Department of Health

Yes. Women who have abortions late are very young, or women going through the menopause, women who do not speak English, women who come across the one fifth of GPs who say they are broadly anti-abortion, women who have had difficulty accessing services and women who are scared, ill educated or marginalised. It is those people who are confronted with such a decision and who, with the assistance and support of medical services, make that extremely difficult decision. It is for them and not for the hon. Gentleman to make that decision. There have not been any dramatic scientific breakthroughs in recent years. The survival rates are still very low for foetuses aborted before 24 weeks, and those that do survive frequently survive with severe disabilities. Last June, doctors at the annual conference of the British Medical Association overwhelmingly rejected a motion calling for the upper limit to be cut from 24 to 20 weeks—77 per cent. of doctors voted against it. The spark that has reignited the debate on time limits is not medical advances, but the beautiful and highly emotive 4D images of foetuses offered by Professor Campbell in his private London clinic. Foetuses can be seen opening their eyes, kicking their legs and sucking their thumbs, but as Allan Templeton, the secretary of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has said, the images add little to the science. If we want a debate about the science, let us talk about the science. He says:"““Observing these developments and physiological movements is not changing anything about the time of viability. These images however have given rise again to the question as to ""whether or not there should be a reduction in the time limit of 24 weeks. It is distressing that so much of the comment has been so ill-informed.””"