Health Secretary rejects call for lower abortion limit » Health » 24dash.com

Health Secretary Alan Johnson today rejected calls for a reduction in the upper limit for abortion from 24 to 20 weeks.

At Commons question time, Mr Johnson said the issue was one for all MPs to make up their own minds on.

But he personally believed the original legislation on abortion had "stood the test of time".

As "an individual," he did not want to see the law changed.

Mr Johnson's comments came as Tory Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) was launching her bid to reduce the time limit from 24 to 20 weeks.

Ms Dorries, a former nurse, is tabling an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would lower the upper limit.

The Health Secretary was replying to Tory Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) who complained of "near industrial levels" of terminations, with nearly 200,000 in England and Wales last year.

Mr Pritchard said abortion was being used for "social reasons" in far too many cases, adding: "It's got to stop."

Earlier junior health minister Ann Keen said only 12% of premature babies born below 24 weeks survive beyond their first birthday.

Ms Keen said that of 435 premature births in England and Wales in 2005, 383 died before they reached one year old.

She also disclosed that the number of repeat abortions in England in 2006 was 59,687 - a figure described as "truly appalling" by Tory Philip Hollobone (Kettering).

Ms Keen told MPs that the British Medical Association and other medical colleges had said there was "no evidence" that there had been a significant improvement in the survival of babies born below 24 weeks in the last 18 years.

She said: "In 2005 there were 435 premature births in England and Wales with a gestational age below 24 weeks.

"Of these 383, about 88%, died before they reached their first birthday and no further information is currently available.

"The British Association of Perinatal Medicine, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists issued a joint statement in April this year stating that there is no evidence of a significant improvement in the survival of pre-term infants below 24 weeks gestation in the UK in the last 18 years."

Liberal Democrat Dr Evan Harris (Oxford W and Abingdon) said: "The reason the organisations you have just cited are of the view that there hasn't been a reduction in the time limit or the threshold of viability, is that the best research, which looks at every birth rather than a selected sample...failed to show any reduction since 1995 in the threshold of viability below 24 weeks."

Ms Dorries said: "I am sure you are aware that the EPICure 2 study averaged out every birth across the UK wherever that birth took place whether it was in a hospital with a neo-natal unit or not."

She said that if a woman went into premature Labour in a hospital which had a good neo-natal unit "the outcomes of that baby are very much improved".

But Ms Keen said: "You are consistent with that argument. I have to be equally as consistent back which is to say that the evidence shows to the contrary."

MPs will be given a free vote when the abortion issue is debated during the Bill's parliamentary passage.