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A debate already defeated
CASE closed - the two words that sprang to
mind on reading the latest research on survival
rates for babies born before 24 weeks,
ahead of next week's crunch abortion vote.
How can anyone convincingly argue for a cut
in the time limit for most abortions to just 20
weeks now we know for certain that almost all
these babies will die, or survive with terrible
disabilities?
Make no mistake, that is what an authoritiative
study published last week by the British Medical
Journal makes plain to all but the most blinkered
eye.
The study, involving 16 hospitals with more
than 55,000 births a year, found prospects for babies
born before 24 weeks are desperately poor
and have not improved, despite medical
advances.
Looking at two periods - 1994 to 1999 and 2000
to 2005 - the researchers found the survival rate
for 23-week births virtually unchanged at about
18 per cent.
None of the 150 babies born at 22 weeks lived.
The results also suggested, say the authors,
that medicine may have reached its limits in
keeping the earliest premature babies alive.
Of course, the study - led by a professor at
Leicester's neonatal unit - will not stop the 20-
week campaign by anti-abortion MPs, one of
whom immediately condemned it as a "desperate
piece of tosh".
Hence, the stage is set for a Commons showdown
on an amendment to the Human Fertilisation
and Embryology Bill, the first attempt to cut
the time limit since 1990.
Backed by Tory leader David Cameron and
armed with heart-tugging pictures of thumbsucking
foetuses appearing to "walk", the antiabortion
MPs believe the wind is in their
sails.That's because nervous Labour MPs, pondering
their tiny majorities and their growing unpopularity,
may decide it would be the kiss of
death to be "name and shamed", having refused
to buckle.
Next week, we will hear a lot about higher survival
rates in some American hospitals, where
very expensive special care units are made available.
But the anti-abortion MPs will not talk
about the appalling disabilities they are left with,
how such units will be paid for, or which babies
born later will be turfed out to make room for
them.
Meanwhile, the British Pregnancy Advisory
Service documents many cases of women, or
girls, who do not even realise they are pregnant
until they have gone past 20 weeks.
However, rightly or wrongly, next week's battle
will be fought on what science tells us about
when a foetus becomes "viable" - and that's a battle
the anti-abortionists have lost.
THE same Bill will also update regulations on
IVF treatment, to give greater protection to
would-be parents paying for help at private
clinics.
Dari Taylor, the Stockton South MP, spoke
from the heart of the need for this, telling fellow
MPs: "I speak as a female who is infertile and
who went through years of medical treatment,
sadly, without the doctors ever discovering why
I could not conceive naturally.
"In Britain, about 20 per cent of young women
and couples go through the same experience.
They want a natural conception, they hope that
scientific advances will help them, but in many
cases those fail."
The MP, who chairs the all-party parliamentary
infertility group, concluded: "The Bill deals
with a regulatory framework that is of the utmost
importance."
9:36am Thursday 15th May 2008
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