- Debate proposing decriminalising abortion wanted more rights for women
- Nurses stressed they should be able to choose where and how to terminate
- One of the earliest premature ‘sugarbag’ babies to survive spoke out against relaxing the rules
Rosie Taylor for the Daily Mail
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Women should be able to take abortion pills at home, a group of nurses have said
Women should be able to take abortion pills at home, a group of nurses have said.
In a debate proposing decriminalising abortion, they called for new laws to replace ‘Draconian’ legislation which means women cannot choose where and how to have a termination.
But one of the earliest premature ‘sugarbag’ babies to survive spoke out against relaxing the rules.
Sophie Proud, who was born at 23 weeks in 1996, said the 24-week limit for terminations should be reconsidered.
The 20-year-old student nurse braved opposition at the Royal College of Nursing Congress, saying: ‘I was born at 23 weeks, 20 years ago, and believe that this should be looked at.
‘I realise that without extensive medical intervention I would not be standing here today but the viability of a foetus needs to be considered.
‘I am living proof that there is potential for a baby to survive before 24 weeks and the survival rates are higher than they were 20 years ago thanks to medical advances.’
Miss Proud was one of the youngest premature babies ever to survive at the time when she was born in April 1996 weighing just 1lb 9oz – around the same as a bag of sugar. Her twin died at birth.
Speakers in the debate at the RCN Congress in Glasgow yesterday said laws which state abortions must be approved by two doctors and carried out at a hospital or specialist clinic were ‘needlessly intrusive’ and out of date.
They argued that abortions should be decriminalised so they could be carried out by nurses or midwives, and women should be able to choose to have them in their own homes if they wished.
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Nurse Amanda Myers, who proposed the motion for decriminalisation, said: ‘(The 1967 Abortion Act) didn’t give women the authority to decide for themselves whether to end a pregnancy but left that decision in the hands of the medical profession.
‘The paternalistic approach it embodies is now badly out of step in a society which expects women to be able to play a full role to take charge of their own reproductive decision making.’
She said forcing women to seek approval from two doctors meant they often had to wait for a termination – taking it further into the pregnancy with a detrimental impact on their health.
There was ‘no dignity’ in making women take termination medication in clinics and then forcing them to rush home before they passed the pregnancy, she said.
Speakers in the debate at the RCN Congress in Glasgow yesterday said laws which state abortions must be approved by two doctors and carried out at a hospital or specialist clinic were ‘needlessly intrusive’ and out of date (stock photograph)
‘In other countries women are allowed to take the medication home with them, to use in the comfort of their own surroundings,’ she added.
Diane Crow said: ‘It is unacceptable that women’s bodies remain governed by Victorian legislation that fossilises values way out of step with those cherished in Britain today.’
While Morag Fallows added: ‘Abortion is not a choice women can take for themselves but is a decision made for them by doctors… This is about women having control over their own bodies.’
But Ellen Cullen suggested women desperate to end their pregnancies should be encouraged to give their babies to couples desperate to adopt.
She said: ‘Can we not educate some of these really desperate girls out there to the fact that even in this day and age there are loads of couples out there who would willingly take care of their children?’
And Elizabeth Rees added: ‘I personally think the current time limits are much too long and the clinical viability of babies nowadays is much better than it was when the existing legislation was passed. We need to tighten abortion law, not have a free-for-all when there are real victims here.’
Just over half of the 184,571 abortions carried out in England and Wales in 2014 were medical abortions – using drugs rather than equipment to terminate the pregnancy.
Nearly two in five were given to women who had already had at least once abortion and 98 per cent were NHS-funded.
Nine out of ten abortions are carried out within the first 13 weeks of pregnancy but can be done up to 24 weeks. In rare occasions – such as the pregnancy being life-threatening to the mother – abortions can be carried out after 24 weeks.
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