Daily Echo - 22 May 2008

Written by Sandra Gidley on Thu 22nd May 2008

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill has dominated the beginning of this week at Westminster. Much of the Bill is technical but there are aspects of it that are considered to be matters of conscience. So, MPs have been trying to understand the detail of hybrid and cybrid embryos as well as considering the pros and cons of gene implantation. The moral issues have surrounded the creation of saviour siblings and the "need for a father".

There was nothing in the original draft of the bill that was related to abortion and I deplore the fact that the bill was hijacked by those seeking to change the abortion laws in a number of ways. In my opinion the debate should have been a completely separate one. The reason for this is that a lot of thought and consultation usually goes into constructing a Bill (I know that this is not always obvious). When ad hoc amendments are made this process is sidelined and the result is often that the subject is not treated in its entirety.

It would have been very easy to duck the debate on abortion and leave the decisions to others but we are elected to help make these decisions. The other aspect which makes the debate really hard is that strong passions are generated. Outside the House of Commons was an interesting sight. A group of women singing "hands off our ovaries" were separated, by barriers, from "pro life" Christians who were singing hymns. It is one of those situations where you can respect the views of others but do not necessarily agree with them.

This is the hardest decision I have had to make in my life. I was very tempted to vote to reduce the abortion limit to 22 weeks but in the end decided to retain the status quo. This does not mean that I am comfortable with the fact that in some circumstances doctors are struggling to save the life of a pre term infant whilst others are aborted at the same stage. There has been a lot of very emotional material in some of the media stating that foetuses smile at 16 weeks. I have struggled with some of these messages because they do tug the heart strings but then I recalled that accepted wisdom is that babies do not smile until a few weeks after birth anyway so the concept that babies smile in the uterus is a little strange.

In the end I was persuaded by the fact that the medical profession were not actually recommending a change and my research into late abortion highlighted some very tragic cases. Clearly women having abortions at this stage do not take the decision lightly. Do I have the right to take those decisions away from them?

But, ultimately, we need to work towards a reduction in abortion levels at all stages and the real shame is that we are not putting enough effort into achieving that.