If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options
Abortion Time frame
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I've decided to do this on a separate thread as it is going off the point on the other abortion related thread.
Basically its argueing the legal time frame for abortions and was influenced by this:
Now from what I know the time frame is too long, although I couldn't find out for certain on the internet I think you can legally have an abortion at the latest of 24 weeks in the UK. Now I think this is a bit too long.
You could have 2 rooms in a hospital side by side, 1 for premature babies and 1 for abortions. A baby could be being aborted at 24 weeks in 1 room whilst at the other the doctors are trying to save a premature baby delivered at 24 weeks: and with technology and techniques getting better and better it is possible for a baby to survive at this point. This means that a baby aborted at 24 weeks is being killed rather than aborted - as it may be able to survive on its own.
Now, like I said I couldn't back myself up, and 24 weeks may be a little early - it may be 25 or maybe a couple of weeks more from when a baby can survive: if anyone can find any facts etc. I'd like to read them.
What do you think? 24 weeks is too long a time frame?
Basically its argueing the legal time frame for abortions and was influenced by this:
Originally posted by kaffrin
so long as they do it within the legal time frame.
Now from what I know the time frame is too long, although I couldn't find out for certain on the internet I think you can legally have an abortion at the latest of 24 weeks in the UK. Now I think this is a bit too long.
You could have 2 rooms in a hospital side by side, 1 for premature babies and 1 for abortions. A baby could be being aborted at 24 weeks in 1 room whilst at the other the doctors are trying to save a premature baby delivered at 24 weeks: and with technology and techniques getting better and better it is possible for a baby to survive at this point. This means that a baby aborted at 24 weeks is being killed rather than aborted - as it may be able to survive on its own.
Now, like I said I couldn't back myself up, and 24 weeks may be a little early - it may be 25 or maybe a couple of weeks more from when a baby can survive: if anyone can find any facts etc. I'd like to read them.
What do you think? 24 weeks is too long a time frame?
0
Comments
the massive double guessing i suppose. any doctor would say if you want to abort the sooner the better - but it's not exactly an easy decision to make. so they have to think about it and i guess it can take a long time.
you can have abortions after 24 weeks for health reasons. pro-life groups call abortion at this kind of period infanticide, and ill spare you the details of how they abort because it's quite gruesome.
p.s im pro-choice
For just a normal abortion for non disability reasons, the cut off limit is much lower- I think its 14 weeks.
The reason why people have late abortions in cases of disability rather than early abortions, is because usually the only way of knowing that the foetus is disabled is either at the 18 week blood test, the 20 week ultrasound scan or the amniocentisis (offered to high risk mothers only) at around the same stage.
Disabilities cant be picked up any earlier than this, and that is why the cut off date for abortions for this reason is so late.
I personally feel conflicted about it and have no idea what id do if I ever (God forbid) found myself in the situation having to make that decision. I do think its right that people have the choice though, and theres no realistic way of making the cut off point any lower.
In a medical situation, I'm glad that people do have the choice.
Not so long ago, possibly our parents or at least our grandparents generation, there werent the tests available to test for these conditions. A lot of children were actually still born - nowadays they can tell if a baby has conditions incompatible with life, and the abortion is to save the mother going through a pregnancy where the baby wont survive anyway. Other children who were severely disabled were generally put into homes for their entire lives and the parents encouraged to forget about them. People have never before been `expected` to parent seriously disabled children
(im saying this in advance before people say that people should keep their disabled children)
I have every admiration for the people that do look after high needs disabled children though.
Also the NHS waiting list to have an abortion is very long. So an abortion performed at 24 weeks may have been requested some time ago.
The woman's personal situation may have changed greatly since conceiving and she may feel that she is no longer in a position to have a child. For example if she has split up with her partner and has lost her job she may feel unable to have the baby.
The waiting list for abortions arent that long - they cant be. Its usually 2 or 3 weeks max.
Just to clarify.
Sorry but that is just plain bollocks.
Not only do women in these circumstances have rapid access to outpatient clinics, but once the decision is made the operation usually takes place on the next available operating list.
To suggest that the NHS would make a woman waits weeks for thier TOP is just the sort of thing I would expect from a tabloid, not from this site. Unless you have evidence to back this up pf course...
BBC news
Yes, thank you. Now read it again and tell me where it says that women are forced to wait up to 24 weeks for an abortion because the facilities aren't there...
I'm sorry if my original comment seemed to imply otherwise, it wasn't what I meant.
Yes, as usual MoK is right. In my practice a woman can have an abortion within a week if the GP refers the day they are seen in surgery.
I don't know about the situation country-wide but this was the situation in the area that I went to school in, when I was at school. This was about 4 years ago so maybe drastic changes have since taken place.
The article that I posted also seems to say that some women living in some areas have to wait too long.
sorry but you've mentioned "14 weeks" alot, and I'm sure it was 24 weeks you could have an abortion - as in if you decide to have one you can have one and not just for disability reasons - that is what i'm saying is wrong - 24 weeks is too long a time frame to suddendly want an abortion.
If the true time frame is 14 weeks, can you find me some evidence please? I struggled finding the true numbers.
thanks
Youre quite right though, from what I can find, the limit is 24 weeks, 14 weeks is the limit for surgical abortion - after that the foetus has to be induced and apparently its incredibly difficult to get one after 20 weeks, although for foetal abnormality or to protect the life of the mother, there is no legal limit.
http://www.londoncolleges.com/ssg/during_4i.htm
What you miss there, though, is the other demands on these surgeons. Abortion is not "urgent" in terms of medical need. Someone can wait three weeks.
Someone with cancer cannot and you will find that the same surgeon will be performing both operations.
The other aspect is that there will be other patients awaiting surgery, some of whom will have already agreed the date for their surgery to take place. Do you suggest that these people should have to wait longer, in order to fit in an abortion which could be done a week or two later without inconveniencing anyone else?
Of course you can. You can get most procedures carried out quicker in the private sector. But then they don't have 55 million people making demands on their services do they? You cannot compare the two because they are no dealing with the same demands or the same medical conditions.
And this is where working in the NHS gives me a different perspective. You are looking at single condition and I don't dispute that these girls and women have a tough emotional time whilst waiting for their TOP.
What I also have to consider is the patient with cancer, the patient awaiting a hysterectomy because she is bleeding excessively, the patient who has suffered a miscarriage and therefore needs an ERPC within two days (for example). I have to make sure that the needs of each of these patients is met as quickly as possible and it isn't currentl;y possible to carry out all of these procedures withn a week, even though each has very good grounds for precisely that.
I guess it depends on the definition of "too long". What annoyed me most about the article was the comment about women having TOPs more than 10 weeks into their pregnancy. The comparision of 70-odd% in one area and 26% in another. WHat the article didn't mention was at which point the women contacted their GP (did the second group present later?) and it didn't cover how many had their TOP the following week. Basically you could have had all women in the second group treated within 11 weeks, but this wasn't taken into account...