Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said he would favour a change in the law to halve the limit on abortions from 24 weeks into a pregnancy to 12.

 

His comments to the Times came after Women's Minister Maria Miller called for a 20-week limit.

 

The home secretary said she would also "probably" back a change to 20 weeks but reiterated Number 10's view that there were no plans to change the law.

 

The remarks have prompted criticism from some pro-choice campaign groups.

 

A Downing Street spokesman insisted Mr Hunt - who was speaking ahead of the Conservative conference - was expressing purely personal views.

 

Later Prime Minister David Cameron stressed abortion was an "issue of conscience" and Mr Hunt was "absolutely entitled to hold an individual view".

 

"But people need to know the government has got no plans to bring forward any legislation in this area and any vote that does happen will be a free vote," he said.

 

Mr Cameron added he "personally" favoured a "modest reduction" from the current limit of 24 weeks, "because I think there are some medical arguments for that".

 

"But I don't agree with the 12-week limit and that's not the government's policy," he said.

 

'Scope for reduction'

 

The 24 week limit applies to England, Wales and Scotland. Abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland except in exceptional medical circumstances, such as when the mother's health is at risk.

 

There were nearly 190,000 abortions for women in England and Wales last year.

 

The figures, from the Department of Health, also suggest the vast majority - 91% - were carried out in under 13 weeks.

 

Welsh Health Minister, Lesley Griffiths, said: "I've read Jeremy Hunt's remarks about reducing the time limit and this is something that I cannot countenance as being in the best interests of women in Wales.

 

"Should the UK government make any formal proposals to change the law, I will be strongly opposing such a move."

 

Mr Hunt told the Times he felt 12 weeks was "the right point".

 

He said he wants to see a significant reduction in the limit which would prevent almost all abortions past that time.

 

The new health secretary, who is only a few weeks into his job, said he had reached the conclusion after studying the evidence.

 

"It is just my view about that incredibly difficult question about the moment that we should deem life to start.

 

"I don't think the reason I have that view is for religious reasons."

 

Labour shadow public health minister, Diane Abbott, said ministers should not be "playing politics with people's lives".

 

She said there was a "sustained ideological attack on the science and the rights that British women and families have fought for".

 

But speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Home Secretary Theresa May said the government was "right" to take the position it had, reiterating there were "no plans to reduce the abortion limit".

 

She added: "I think there is some scope for some reduction. My own view is probably a reduction to 20 weeks, but as I say that is a personal view of mine."

 

The Department of Health also said Mr Hunt had expressed his own opinion and the government's policy on abortion was clear.

 

'Lack of understanding'

 

Earlier this week, Ms Miller told the Daily Telegraph the legal abortion limit should be lowered to 20 weeks because care for extremely premature babies had improved.

 

Conservative MP Mark Pritchard, vice chairman of a parliamentary pro-life group, also said the limit should be cut.

 

"The existing laws on abortion lag well behind recent breakthroughs in science," he said.

 

Meanwhile, campaigners said a 12-week limit would effectively prevent testing for conditions such as Down's syndrome.

 

Darinka Aleksic, from pressure group Abortion Rights, said it was "absolutely outrageous" that the health secretary wants to "radically restrict access to those services".

 

"Abortion is an absolutely key part of women's healthcare. Clearly he hasn't looked at the scientific evidence around this at all because there's no medical basis for reducing the abortion time limit," she said.

 

Professor Wendy Savage, a gynaecologist who has campaigned for years on women's rights, also told the BBC she had been left "speechless" by Mr Hunt's comments.

 

"It does not bode well that he's the secretary of state for health. What we really should be doing is decriminalising abortion."

 

Elsewhere, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service's Clare Murphy said the remarks reflected "a lack of understanding of why women need later services".

 

Dear god.

The Tories were facing potential rows over the economy, the EU, the NHS, plebs and a whole host of other issues. So what do they do? They get the Health Secretary (who shouldn't be in any Cabinet post, let alone Health) to provoke a debete on abortion.

 

It should be added that Hunt has voted for a 12 week limit in the past so it isn't actually news but it seems to be an odd choice of subject on which to make his first pronouncement in a new job.

 

A 12 week limit would be in line with Tory philosphy though. Those who could afford it will just travel to a country with a later limit. Those who can't will be left to continue with their pregnancy or - far worse - go to some back street abortionist.

I actually thought that this was a good idea until I remembered that the abortion window is a limit of weeks until you cannot abort rather than an amount of weeks until you can abort. :lol:

*Sound of can of worms being opened*.

Cameron is making life hard for himself of late. Maria Miller as women's minister is beyond a joke.

 

He seems to have realised how dim it was to appoint Hunt for Health as well, hence the fairly swift dismissal of the 12 week idea. Of course he's hardly going to sack him only weeks into the job, but he'd be doing us all a favour.

All abortion should be banned imo. There are plenty of couples wanting to adopt a new baby and not an older child as they are often offered. Those aborted babies could easily be found homes.

Edited October 6, 201212 yr by Common Sense

All abortion should be banned imo. There are plenty of couples wanting to adopt a new baby and not an older child as they are often offered. Those aborted babies could easily be found homes.

 

So a woman shouldn't be allowed to choose what happens to her own body? Those "aborted babies" aren't actually babies at all, certainly not before 24 weeks. Technically it's just a foetus until it's born of course, but even I'd be hard pressed to allow abortion at 35 weeks or something ridiculous.

All abortion should be banned imo. There are plenty of couples wanting to adopt a new baby and not an older child as they are often offered. Those aborted babies could easily be found homes.

So how would you go about telling a woman who is pregnant as a result of rape that she has to go ahead with the pregnancy? I agree that adoption is preferable to abortion (in many circumstances) but that doesn't mean abortion should be eliminated as a choice.

So how would you go about telling a woman who is pregnant as a result of rape that she has to go ahead with the pregnancy? I agree that adoption is preferable to abortion (in many circumstances) but that doesn't mean abortion should be eliminated as a choice.

 

Okay then, only in very exceptional circumstance of child abuse or rape.

You can't say abortion is only allowed in cases of rape because often a rapist would not be found guilty in time for the baby to be aborted. Also you'd get desperate women claiming they'd been raped just so they could abort their baby. On top of that you'd get a massive increase in the teenage pregnancy rate. There is literally no good that can come of banning abortion.

 

You can't say abortion is only allowed in cases of rape because often a rapist would not be found guilty in time for the baby to be aborted. Also you'd get desperate women claiming they'd been raped just so they could abort their baby. On top of that you'd get a massive increase in the teenage pregnancy rate. There is literally no good that can come of banning abortion.

 

It would also lead to the situation I described above happening even more. Women who could afford it would go abroad for an abortion while those who couldn't will either give birth to a baby they don't want or see some back street abortionist.

Abortion is murder, plain and simple.

 

Abortion is murder, plain and simple.

 

Do you have any views that do not differ from the majority? What experiences have you had that makes you think that your viewpoint is right? Why and how have you come to the conclusion that abortion is murder?

 

These are questions that need answers.

Do you have any views that do not differ from the majority? What experiences have you had that makes you think that your viewpoint is right? Why and how have you come to the conclusion that abortion is murder?

 

These are questions that need answers.

 

All of them, on here at least. That's the nature of a troll.

 

At least this argument's a little easier to shut down: from a legal standpoint (and certainly the moral standpoint of most rational people) a child is not a human being until it is born. Murder = killing a human being, so abortion is not murder. The 24 week distinction from what I know is based on when a foetus is able to theoretically survive without being in the womb, to all intents and purposes before that point it is part of a woman's body and a woman should have a right to control what happens to her own body. Is it coincidence that most "pro-life" campaigners are men?

Do you have any views that do not differ from the majority?

 

Is that what you want? Everyone to agree? What a great debate that would be.

 

 

What experiences have you had that makes you think that your viewpoint is right?

Since when do I need to have specific experience of a subject to have a view on it?

 

Why and how have you come to the conclusion that abortion is murder?

 

It's the bit where a human being is killed by another that makes it murder in my book.

 

 

All of them, on here at least. That's the nature of a troll.

 

At least this argument's a little easier to shut down: from a legal standpoint (and certainly the moral standpoint of most rational people) a child is not a human being until it is born. Murder = killing a human being, so abortion is not murder. The 24 week distinction from what I know is based on when a foetus is able to theoretically survive without being in the womb, to all intents and purposes before that point it is part of a woman's body and a woman should have a right to control what happens to her own body. Is it coincidence that most "pro-life" campaigners are men?

 

And a man shouldn't have a say in what happens to a child he created?

 

What a load of radical feminist nonsense.

And a man shouldn't have a say in what happens to a child he created?

 

What a load of radical feminist nonsense.

 

YES, JUST LOOK AT MY MASSIVE VAGINA.

 

Oh wait.

 

Yeah, playing the feminist card doesn't really work when you're talking to a man. Given a man doesn't have what will become a human being growing inside of him, I would have thought that even you could understand that's a ridiculous point.

 

Also, point me in the direction of a stat that says that most men whose spawn is aborted didn't want it to be. It's a mutual decision more often than not, no one's forcing you to have an abortion. Hence the name pro-choice.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxfj1s4EHx1qgnx3ko1_500.jpg

Is that what you want? Everyone to agree? What a great debate that would be.

 

Since when do I need to have specific experience of a subject to have a view on it?

 

No, but seeing as you have never agreed with what the majority (me, Charlie, Rooney, Suedehead, Kath) have said on this website, I have every right to be concerned about your real opinion and how genuine you are as a person.

 

Because it shows that you have not known someone who has experienced the horrors of making the decision to carry out an abortion and you do not understand how upsetting it is for someone to "kill" a child or realise that unwanted children could be made out of sexual abuse, which could potentially make their lives even worse as someone might not want to care for or look after them.

 

Therefore, your opinion is invalid. :)

Edited October 7, 201212 yr by Griff