Make abortion available 'in the community' - Family Planning Association

Published by Jon Land for 24dash.com in Communities and also in Health

The Family Planning Association (fpa) is calling on the Goverment to modernise British abortion law by making the procedure widely available within local communities.

The national sexual health charity says it would like to see abortions being made available in places such as GP surgeries and contraceptive clinics.

The fpa is making the calls ahead of a debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (HFE) in the House of Commons on July 14.

Procedures that govern how abortions are carried out today, are based on legal requirements instituted when the Abortion Bill was first put in place back in 1967.

According to the fpa, these procedures were established to protect women from back street abortionists and reflect a time when medical abortion wasn’t available.

With support from a cross-parliamentary group of pro-choice MPs, fpa is proposing that the place where abortions can take place should not just include hospitals and independent sector clinics.

fpa believes that the criteria should be broadened to include suitable medical settings, including GP surgeries and and contraceptive clinics.

According to the fpa, if this happened, the whole experience of having an abortion, which can be extremely difficult for some women, would be vastly improved.

The charity states: "Women would be saved from having to travel (and pay to travel) to have an abortion, abortion would take place much earlier on in pregnancy and sexual health specialists would be able to offer a complete package of personalised care to women."

As part of the modernisation debate, fpa has already launched a national campaign to extend abortion to Northern Ireland.

The fpa also supports other amendments including:

• Women should be able to choose if they would like the second stage of medical abortion in the privacy of their own home rather than a clinic.
• The need for a woman to seek the permission of two doctors for an abortion at any gestation should be removed. Instead, a doctor certifies the pregnancy is within 24 weeks and the woman gives informed consent to the procedure.
• Nurses and suitably trained health professionals should be able to perform abortions as well as doctors.

Chief Executive of fpa, Julie Bentley said: “The entire modern day philosophy in the NHS is about putting health services right into the heart of communities.

"Why should women who want an abortion be treated any differently to everyone else, and have to travel to obtain one with all the costs and stress this incurs.

“Sexual health specialists in GPs and contraceptive clinics already provide a range of care. Adding the provision of abortion would mean they can offer a much improved and far more holistic health service to women.”