Here, Abortion Rights outlines why the campaign launched by conservative back bench MP Nadine Dorries in the Daily Mail should be defeated by MPs on 20th May when amendments on abortion are debated.

Dorries' campaign has also been forcefully opposed by Zoe Williams and Polly Toynbee in the Guardian this week.

Zoe Williams Guardian 7 May 08 Fact, Fiction and Foetuses

Polly Toynbee, Guardian 9 May 08 Resist the medievalists. Women's right to abortion is a private matter

Louise Hutchins, Abortion Rights Campaign Coordinator said:
Nadine Dorries MP’s crusade to chip away at women’s reproductive rights shows an appalling disregard for women and the difficult circumstances that they sometimes face.

Her ’20 reasons for 20 weeks’ campaign has been roundly condemned as entirely without foundation by medical spokespeople, sexual health organisations and a cross party range of MPs.

Contrary to Nadine Dorries’ claims, the best evidence – the EPICure 2 study shows that, unfortunately, premature babies’ survival has not significantly improved below 24 weeks. Nadine’s selective use of medical data to corroborate her political aim is misleading.

Nadine claims that two thirds of GPs support a reduction in the time limit, but an overwhelming 77 per cent of doctors voted to defend the current 24-week time limit at the last British Medical Association conference. All the relevant medical bodies oppose a reduction in the time limit - the BMA, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, British Association of Perinatal Medicine Royal College of Nursing and Department of Health. Such a move is widely opposed including by MPs from all three main parities, the trade unions, and student and women’s organisations.

The 4D moving ultrasound images are clinically useful in identifying congenital problems, but do not provide any evidence of foetal viability or sentience. The overwhelming scientific consensus on perception of pain is clear – that foetuses below 24 weeks gestation do not have the physiological capacity to feel pain, that such a function in the womb would be redundant, and that pain is in any case a complex psychological experience that can only exist as sentience develops upon birth.

Very few women need later abortion – less than 2 per cent of all abortions take place after 20 weeks. They are needed most commonly by women consistently using contraception, nearing the menopause or who’s periods didn’t stop whose pregnancy was diagnosed late, or women with a previously wanted pregnancy who face life crises such as domestic violence. No one involved takes the decision lightly.

Any lowering of the time limit would be devastating for this small number of women and force some to continue with a pregnancy against their will – causing long term psychological and physical harm, others will travel abroad for a later abortion if they can afford to. Others, will risk a dangerous illegal back-street option.

Women must be entitled to make the most fundamental decisions over their own bodies – not be dictated to by Nadine Dorries. No woman takes a decision about ending her pregnancy lightly. Abortion Rights urges MPs, when they vote on 20th May, to consider the fundamental importance of reproductive rights to women and oppose any attempt to lower the abortion time limit.

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