[Metrobeans]

B475 - Abortion (Amendment) Bill 2012, JPKC

Abortion (Amendment) Act 2012

An Act to affirm the reproductive rights of all women in the United Kingdom.


BE IT ENACTED by The Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, in accordance with the provisions of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, and by the authority of the same, as follows:-


Part I: Amendments
1 Amendment to section 7 subsection (3) of the Abortion Act 1967
(1) In Section 7(3) of the Abortion Act 1967 the existing provision is replaced with the following:

(3) This Act extends across the United Kingdom.

2 Amendment to section 1 of the Abortion Act 1967
(1) In section 1 of the Abortion Act 1967 the existing provisions are replaced with the following:

1 Medical termination of pregnancy
(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, a person shall not be guilty of an offence under the law relating to abortion when a pregnancy is terminated by a registered medical practitioner—

(a) upon the request of a pregnant woman.

(3) Except as provided by subsection (4) of this section, any treatment for the termination of pregnancy must be carried out in a hospital vested in the Minister of Health or the Secretary of State under the National Health Service Acts, or in a place for the time being approved for the purposes of this section by the said Minister or the Secretary of State.
(4) Subsection (3) and (1)(a) of this section shall not apply to the termination of a pregnancy by a registered medical practitioner in a case where he is of the opinion, formed in good faith, that the termination is immediately necessary to save the life or to prevent grave, permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman.

Part II: Provision
3 National Health Service provision
(1) The NHS must provide abortion services.
(2) No pregnant woman requesting an abortion should wait longer than one week for the procedure to be provided by the NHS.


Part III: Miscellaneous
4 Short Title
(1) This Act may be cited as the Abortion (Amendment) Act 2012.


5 Commencement
(1) This Act will enter law on the 1st of September 2012.

Notes

Abortion Act 1967

Explanation for Each Section

1 Amendment to section 7 subsection (3) of the Abortion Act 1967

Spoiler:

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Abortion Act 1967

7 Short title, commencement and extent.

(1) This Act may be cited as the Abortion Act 1967.
(2) This Act shall come into force on the expiration of the period of six months beginning with the date on which it is passed.
(3) This Act does not extend to Northern Ireland.

The British abortion law was never extended to Northern Ireland and women there still don’t have access to safe legal abortion. With the developments in the peace process in Northern Ireland and the re-establishment of the institutions, it is time women there had their own rights to abortion. NI has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the UK, and women desperate for abortions are forced into using dubious DIY methods that can cause great trauma and threaten their own lives.

2 Amendment to section 1 of the Abortion Act 1967

Spoiler:

Show

Abortion Act 1967

1 Medical termination of pregnancy.

(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, a person shall not be guilty of an offence under the law relating to abortion when a pregnancy is terminated by a registered medical practitioner if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion, formed in good faith—

(a) that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman, or of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated; or

(b) that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.

(2) In determining whether the continuance of a pregnancy would involve such risk of injury to health as is mentioned in paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of this section, account may be taken of the pregnant woman's actual or reasonably foreseeable environment.

(3) Except as provided by subsection (4) of this section, any treatment for the termination of pregnancy must be carried out in a hospital vested in the Minister of Health or the Secretary of State under the National Health Service Acts, or in a place for the time being approved for the purposes of this section by the said Minister or the Secretary of State.

(4) Subsection (3) of this section, and so much of subsection (1) as relates to the opinion of two registered medical practitioners, shall not apply to the termination of a pregnancy by a registered medical practitioner in a case where he is of the opinion, formed in good faith, that the termination is immediately necessary to save the life or to prevent grave, permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman.

Under the law as it currently stands, abortion is not legally available at the request of the woman. After a woman has decided that she wants to end her pregnancy, she has to persuade two doctors to agree to her decision on the basis of restrictive legal criteria. This requirement is not only paternalistic, but more damagingly, it allows the approximately one in ten doctors who are opposed to all abortion the opportunity to delay, obstruct or even veto women’s decisions. There is no legal requirement for doctors to declare their conscientious objection to abortion but professional guidelines require that they do refer a woman on to another doctor immediately. Anti-choice doctors, instead of declaring their objection and referring women on, have wrongly told them that they are too late, that they have lost their pregnancy test results, that they are not entitled to an NHS abortion, that abortion is murder or who have refused to refer them to another GP. This is unacceptable. It is time for a modern law – where women not doctors make the abortion decision.

3 National Health Service provision

Spoiler:

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Making women wait weeks and weeks for an abortion just extends the ordeal and adds uneeded emotional anguish to the pregnant woman who has already chosen to terminate. In Abortion Rights’ March 2007 opinion poll, 72 per cent said it was not acceptable for a woman who had been referred for an abortion to have to wait beyond three weeks for the procedure. It is also true that there is no obligation for the NHS to provide abortion services currently.

[JPKC]

Aye.

(Original post by Metrobeans)
QFA

Finickity formatting thing! There's supposed to be a two line gap between "(1) In section 1 of the Abortion Act 1967 the existing provisions are replaced with the following:" and "1 Medical termination of pregnancy".

[tufc]

(Original post by JPKC)
Aye.



Finickity formatting thing! There's supposed to be a two line gap between "(1) In section 1 of the Abortion Act 1967 the existing provisions are replaced with the following:" and "1 Medical termination of pregnancy".

The formatting has made it rather confusing. Could you explain, in layman's terms, what the effect of this will be?

[MacDaddi]

Theres nothing really wrong with teh current system - and I dont see how this bill will go far to change it.

[JPKC]

(Original post by tufc)
The formatting has made it rather confusing. Could you explain, in layman's terms, what the effect of this will be?

Layman's terms: women being able to choose to have an abortion (up to 24 weeks) without having to convince two doctors to consent. It would also make abortion legal in Northern Ireland.

The formatting is the standard for amendment bills in Parliament.

[tufc]

(Original post by JPKC)
Layman's terms: women being able to choose to have an abortion (up to 24 weeks) without having to convince two doctors to consent. It would also make abortion legal in Northern Ireland.

The formatting is the standard for amendment bills in Parliament.

So you want to remove all the checks along the way to depriving a foetus of life...

[JPKC]

(Original post by MacDaddi)
Theres nothing really wrong with teh current system - and I dont see how this bill will go far to change it.

Millions of women in Northern Ireland are denied access to abortion. Women in the rest of the UK are the only group in the Western world that have to convince two doctors before they are allowed to terminate their pregnancy - a paternalistic throwback to the antiquated culture of the 1960s where women were seen as incapable of making independent choices about their own reproductive systems.

This is fundamentally a pro-choice bill.

[JPKC]

(Original post by tufc)
So you want to remove all the checks along the way to depriving a foetus of life...

Foetuses are not alive and the "checks and balances" only serve to restrict women's access to abortions during the time frame in which they are allowed to abort (24 weeks).

[tufc]

(Original post by JPKC)
Foetuses are not alive and the "checks and balances" only serve to restrict women's access to abortions during the time frame in which they are allowed to abort (24 weeks).

Whether you see them as alive or not, they are being deprived of a future life. As you can probably tell from my bill earlier this week, I don't agree with that. However, if its legality is to be continued, maintaining the checks and balances is crucial to ensure that it is a decision made with sound mind, and never on a whim. Slowing such decisions down is always a good thing. Also, it's a check, not a balance.

[When you see it...]

(Original post by JPKC)
Foetuses are not alive

lol

[JPKC]

(Original post by tufc)
Whether you see them as alive or not, they are being deprived of a future life. As you can probably tell from my bill earlier this week, I don't agree with that. However, if its legality is to be continued, maintaining the checks and balances is crucial to ensure that it is a decision made with sound mind, and never on a whim. Slowing such decisions down is always a good thing. Also, it's a check, not a balance.

Checks against what? There is no reason, in law, to prevent a woman from aborting their child during the legal period.

Women are legally able to abort on a whim if they so wish, it's their womb. It's so effing patronising to say "oh, women need to see some doctors because they can't be responsible for making decisions about their own body". And the argument that a foetus is a potential life is rubbish: a sperm is a potential life, should we outlaw masturbation? Oh, and, every time a woman menstruates a potential life gets literally flushed away. How horrific! And what about when a woman miscarries due to an unhealthy lifestyle, is she committing manslaughter?

[Ysolt]

Im pro-choice and would support this and I hope that my fellow lib dems do too. As a girl I believe that all women have the right to control their own reproductive systme and so having doctors making the judgements is wrong, and it is even more wrong that women in northern ireland have no access at all. This is an important social issue.

[Rakas21]

Leaning towards an Aye.

[tehFrance]

I am so confused, we have a bill going through banning abortion and you want to admen the current system? could you be too confident

That said, I don't agree with this as it appears to be removing controls that are required to prevent abuse of the abortion system, don't get me wrong I am in favour of abortion however removing checks is stupid. Correct me if I am wrong.

[JPKC]

(Original post by tehFrance)
I am so confused, we have a bill going through banning abortion and you want to admen the current system? could you be too confident

That said, I don't agree with this as it appears to be removing controls that are required to prevent abuse of the abortion system, don't get me wrong I am in favour of abortion however removing checks is stupid. Correct me if I am wrong.

What controls do you believe there are? No one should be able to stop a woman having an abortion if that's the decision she's made about her body.

[PoGo HoPz]

This would be a definite aye from me if I were an MP.

[JPKC]

(Original post by PoGo HoPz)
This would be a definite aye from me if I were an MP.

You should maybe think about trying to become an MP after the next election imo.

[toronto353]

(Original post by JPKC)
Checks against what? There is no reason, in law, to prevent a woman from aborting their child during the legal period.

Women are legally able to abort on a whim if they so wish, it's their womb. It's so effing patronising to say "oh, women need to see some doctors because they can't be responsible for making decisions about their own body". And the argument that a foetus is a potential life is rubbish: a sperm is a potential life, should we outlaw masturbation? Oh, and, every time a woman menstruates a potential life gets literally flushed away. How horrific! And what about when a woman miscarries due to an unhealthy lifestyle, is she committing manslaughter?

I think that you're perhaps mistaking life. I would argue that there are gradations of life. It may sound silly, but hear me out. A sperm has the potential for life in the same way that an ovum has the potential for life. They have the potential to combine to make life, but on their own, they are not capable of producing life. A foetus is a potential life. Hence I would argue that a sperm or an ovum has the capability of producing life, but not by itself and that's why it differs from a foetus - because in isolation, only one of these three is a potential life and that is the foetus. Sperm and ova - providers of a potential life; foetus - potential life; human - life.

In that way then, I believe that your above argument is flawed with regards to you attempting to refute the potential life argument.

If I may, I'd now like to move on to your point concerning the right of the woman and her choice over the right to life. You have compelling arguments for this and perhaps you would also like to consider in your arguments my above idea. If the woman is a life and the foetus a potential life, then surely the rights of the life outweigh those of a potential life? However, your argument over choice is flawed because the woman always has a choice. The woman may put her child in care upon giving birth. Restricting abortion does not prevent all choice. Pro-choice and anti-abortion can go together because there is a choice. The choice is limited between a life of being in the care system for the child and raising the child yourself, but the choice is there.

I'm not sure whether I agree with this Bill or not so will think about it, but there's my response to your points.

[JPKC]

(Original post by toronto353)
I think that you're perhaps mistaking life. I would argue that there are gradations of life. It may sound silly, but hear me out. A sperm has the potential for life in the same way that an ovum has the potential for life. They have the potential to combine to make life, but on their own, they are not capable of producing life. A foetus is a potential life. Hence I would argue that a sperm or an ovum has the capability of producing life, but not by itself and that's why it differs from a foetus - because in isolation, only one of these three is a potential life and that is the foetus. Sperm and ova - providers of a potential life; foetus - potential life; human - life.

In that way then, I believe that your above argument is flawed with regards to you attempting to refute the potential life argument.

That's one arbitrary way to look at it. I think that if it's a matter of degree then you might as well go further - a gamete is half of a zygote, so it's 50% of a potential life. That sounds ridiculous, right? Of course it does. All of this is a tremendous grey area until you step back and assume an exoteric perspective; why do we squabble over the minutiae of what constitutes what and ask "why do we value life in the first place?" Asking this question is taboo, of course, though that does not render it any less legitimate. I don't think valuing life is a necessity - it's not objectively meaningful or true to say that all life has value, and when you look at human history you can see that a lot of it has been bloodily carved out by those that disagree with this abstract idea. So why do we value life so much? Religious people say that ethics derive from a higher, spiritual plane and so we should not attempt to understand them in rational human terms. Kant said that all human life was inherently dignified and that our behaviour, in all respects, should be devoted to recognising this. I agree with neither - firstly there's no empirical basis for either divine law or this inherent human dignity Kant speaks of (I also believe the latter view is an attempt at justifying the former in philosophical terms, though that's another debate). So if there is no rational or spiritual basis for believing that all life has inherent value then we are left with a third option: social utility. We can explain the ethics of the modern era (innate human dignity etcetera) as a result of the social function they perform. Treating life as sacred is good for human societies as it minimises violence and deadly strife (in theory, at least) - treating each other as if we each are worthy is a brilliant invention of humanity-s behavioural evolution. Raskolnikov felt guilt when he murdered the old lady - why? He was, or would have been, programmed into responding in such a way by both our biological and social evolutionary history. The belief that human life possesses inherent value is a meme (read: Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene), and a one that we all benefit from (as said, it is utilitarian in that it maximises positives and minimises negatives). I agree with this view. Applying it to the abortion debate is simple. On a primitive level there is no social benefit brought about by outlawing abortion, so abortion should be available as much as it possibly could be. As said, this is simplistic. There's the problem of fear: people don't want to see babies killed because if we kill babies there then surely that, in our mindseye, undermines the belief that baby lives are to be valued alongside those of all other people. So we need some arbitrary distinction between a baby and an abortable foetus; the accepted distinction society uses currently is self-awareness and pain. This allows us to maximise utility by allowing abortions (and women's rights to control their womb) without damaging the social function performed by the meme that life is inherently valued. I'm happy with this view and believe it to be the most coherent.

If I may, I'd now like to move on to your point concerning the right of the woman and her choice over the right to life. You have compelling arguments for this and perhaps you would also like to consider in your arguments my above idea. If the woman is a life and the foetus a potential life, then surely the rights of the life outweigh those of a potential life? However, your argument over choice is flawed because the woman always has a choice. The woman may put her child in care upon giving birth. Restricting abortion does not prevent all choice. Pro-choice and anti-abortion can go together because there is a choice. The choice is limited between a life of being in the care system for the child and raising the child yourself, but the choice is there.

I'm not sure whether I agree with this Bill or not so will think about it, but there's my response to your points.

Oops.

[boba]

extending the right to abortion seems like a good idea but taking away the need to have two doctors sign would make next to no difference since in practice it just gets signed by the doctor referring you and then the one performing the procedure. since there is inevitably more than one doctor involved getting more than one to sign isn't really an issue