Abortion

There has been a call to revise the Abortion Act 1967, on the basis that it is being abused.Under current law, a woman may have an abortion if A)her life is at risk, B) if there is grave risk of damage to her mental or physical wellbeing, C) if there is a greater risk of harm to her mental/physical wellbeing than if she does not continue the pregnancy, D) if there is a greater risk of harm to the existing children of the woman than if she does not continue the pregnancy, or E) if the foetus will be severely disabled.
Under clause A, B and E, the termination may be carried out at any time, up to 40 weeks (although the woman may struggle to find a doctor willing to certify a termination at such an advanced gestation). Under clause C and D, abortion is legal until 24 weeks.

The argument to revise the abortion act chiefly centres on Clause C. 98% of terminations are carried out under this clause. A Royal College of Psychiatry study has shown that for women with unwanted pregnancies, rates of mental health problems were the same whether they had a termination or gave birth. . There are calls to either tighten up legislation on under what circumstances abortions are permitted, or to reduce the gestational age limit.

24 weeks is the limit because that is considered the age at which a foetus becomes viable - i.e. it can survive outside the womb. Originally, the limit was 28 weeks, but as more technology enabled those babies to survive, it was reduced. Very few babies born at 24 weeks survive, and those that do usually suffer from disability of some type, even with modern neonatal technology. Under British law, a baby stillborn before 24 weeks is technically a miscarriage, even though the mother usually gives birth. This, again, is due to the legal definition of viability. An abortion is done before 24 weeks, ideally, because there is no duty of care for the doctors performing the procedure to attempt to save the foetus. Indeed, in terminations carried out after 20 weeks, foetocide is usually performed to ensure there is no conflict of duty. 

The ethics of abortion are undoubtedly a tangled and emotive web. There is no consensus on when life begins: there are arguments to call a pregnancy 'live' from ovulation (preconception), conception (within days of ovulation), implantation (4 weeks), the development of the placenta and heartbeat (8 weeks), from when it looks human (approximately 12-14 weeks), or from when kicks can be felt (approximately 16-20 weeks). From very early on in pregnancy, a woman's whole body and mind is taken over by this bunch of undifferentiated cells within. No mother, feeling her baby move, would tell you that it is not alive. However, legally, an unborn baby is not a citizen. It has no rights. It does not exist. It is an abstract concept, in matters of law.
For the purposes of this particular debate, the concern seems to be women recklessly getting pregnant and then having a termination for social reasons. I would argue that this is not a medical debate, or even an ethical debate. It is a moral judgement. Women should not get pregnant with babies they do not want, and in threatening to withdraw their right to terminate, women who act so recklessly in future, will be punished.The decision to terminate is rarely taken lightly. The idea that women use termination as contraception is largely wrong. Some women feel no emotional or moral burden over their decision, but that is their prerogative. Abortion is not painless, and there are hormonal side effects.The later the abortion takes place, the more invasive the procedure.

Until I was 25, I was relatively pro-life. I didn't care what other people did with their bodies (though, God knows, I judged them), but I was under the impression that I would never want an abortion. Then my husband left me when I was 14 weeks pregnant. My gut reaction was to terminate. I could not fathom how I would cope, as a single mother, with my existing toddler and being pregnant, let alone with a new baby. My ex withdrew and offered no support throughout the pregnancy. I was completely alone, at least to begin with, and it was harrowing. I did not want my baby. I considered terminating in secret and telling everyone I'd miscarried through stress. I considered terminating to punish my ex. I considered terminating for the benefit of my existing son, who needed me more than ever. I had overwhelming family pressure to keep the baby, and most others simply assumed I would. After the 24 week mark passed, my mental health deteriorated, because I no longer had the comfort blanket of termination. My decision to keep my baby was not easy, but the idea of abortion was also not easy. Adoption was simply not an option, as it so frequently isn't for women with families. My baby's birth was immensely cathartic and I have never once regretted my decision to keep him.
I cannot adequately describe the emotional pain my second pregnancy caused me. I was physically attached to my ex. There could be no closure until the baby was out, and either I killed him or I let him be born and struggle as a single mother of two. I wanted to die, so I no longer had to live with the consequences - emotional, physical and economical - of what was happening.
I have suffered no lasting mental illness, but that does not negate the fact that I was suicidal intermittently throughout the third trimester. A termination on account of the risks to my mental health would have been justified, I may even have been able to get one under Clause B, as grave risk to mental health.Not so, if the law is changed to reflect the study by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Women should not have to jump through psychiatric hoops to be granted an termination, within the legal time limit. Whether a woman should abort or not is an individual, subjective decision. Doctors have a right to refuse to authorise, or perform abortions, on personal ethical grounds. Nobody is forcing anybody to have or perform a termination.
Any alteration to abortion law is eroding the rights of women to dictate what happens within their own body, a right women did not even get until 1967.There does not seem to be a great deal of evidence in favour of changing the law as it currently stands, just a lot of hand-wringing moralising, from people who have likely never been in the unenviable position of carrying an unwanted pregnancy.