Doctors have backed decriminalising abortion at the British Medical Association’s (BMA) annual conference in Bournemouth. After a heated debate, delegates voted in favour of a motion calling for a change in the law, which means the association will now lobby the government for changes to the 1967 Abortion Act.
Under the law as it stands, women in England and Wales have to prove to a doctor that carrying on with a pregnancy is detrimental to health or wellbeing to get permission for an abortion. Without the permission, abortion is a criminal offence. At present, the law permits abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, but in some specific cases, such as foetal abnormalities or a significant risk to the mother’s life, there is no time limit.
Religious and pro-life groups have warned that any change to the law could put vulnerable women at risk.
In a statement, the BMA insisted that “removing criminal sanctions specific to abortion does not mean an absence of regulation, limits could still be set, but subject to professional and regulatory, rather than criminal sanctions.”
The BMA stressed it still supports this 24-week time limit. It said, “the debate today and the BMA’s new policy only relate to whether abortion should or should not be a criminal offence: it does not change the issue of when and how abortion should be available”.
However, a spokeswoman from the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales said: “We all depend upon doctors to protect the vulnerable.
We are concerned that decriminalisation of abortion may put more vulnerable women at risk. We are also concerned that this step could open the door to sex-selective abortions.”
The medics’ decision is “astonishing and appalling,” according to the charity Life, who said the BMA had brought the medical profession into disrepute by voting in favour of such “an extreme and radical motion.”
Christian Concern’s CEO Andrea Williams declared, “This debate and vote had no public mandate”. “The mark of a civilised society is how it treats the most vulnerable… When our doctors display such a shocking disrespect for human life, we know we are a society in crisis”, she warned.
The BMA debate followed Labour MP for Kingston Upon Hull Diana Johnson’s Reproductive Health Bill, which had its first reading in parliament in March. Johnson said it was an attempt to make abortion a health and human rights issue rather than a legal one.
Before the debate, 1,500 doctors and medical students signed an open letter, entitled ‘Reject Motion 50’ to reject the decriminalisation of abortion. Dr Peter Saunders, CEO of the Christian Medical Fellowship cited evidence from the ComRes survey in March to show that 60 per cent of people (70 per cent of women) wanted the abortion limit to be tightened to less than 24 weeks.
He said that if the BMA went ahead with the decriminalisation it would be against the mood of the nation and would severely damage the reputation of the industry body.
Around 500 GPs and hospital doctors attended the BMA conference, which represents 160,000 members.
Dr John Chisholm, the BMA's medical ethics chair, said the "sensitive and complex issue" garnered "a broad range of views".
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