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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]

We are running out of doctors who want to perform late terminations because the majority of doctors who work in the BPAS and Marie Stopes clinics are coming in from abroad on six-month contracts. There are very few UK graduates performing late terminations in BPAS or Marie Stopes clinics —[Interruption.] There are only two, apparently. Public opinion has changed, which has a huge amount to do with the work of Professor Stuart Campbell in 3D imagery. Pregnant women have always wished that they had a window on their stomachs so that they could see what their baby looked like and what their baby was doing. Professor Campbell has provided that window. We can now see what a baby looks like at various stages of pregnancy. We can see it walk in the womb, we can see it suck its thumb, and we can see exactly what our baby looks like. The public have been informed by the images of how a foetus develops, the knowledge that foetuses feel pain in the uterus earlier, the knowledge of what happens in a late termination, the fact that doctors do not want to perform abortions and the fact that they are not performed in the NHS but in private clinics, and they have taken a view. Their view is that they do not want any further late terminations at 24 weeks. The public do not say that they want the limit to come down from 24 weeks; the public—including three quarters of women—say that they want 20 weeks. They specify what they want. I would like to press the new clause to a vote, but I would like to finish with the words of Professor Sunny Anand, who is the world's leading authority on foetal pain. As a result of his work, neonates who are operated on now live. The consensus of opinion before was that neonates could not feel pain before they were due to be born. They were operated on and died during the operations. As a result of his research, neonates now live.