Children first
If the survival and welfare of children are crucial, economic support should be available as a practical alternative to abortion.
If saving public money is paramount, then surely Tories should be seeking to raise the abortion limit to five years or older.
John Eoin Douglas
Spey Terrace
Edinburgh
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Hide AdHealth Secretary and homeopathy enthusiast, Jeremy Hunt, suggests halving the legal time limit for abortions from 24 to 12 weeks in an effort to lower abortion statistics.
But some 90 per cent of UK abortions take place before 12 weeks and medics say such a reduction will make little difference to overall numbers but will put women at risk.
Mr Hunt claims his proposal is “research driven”, but the fact is that many serious foetal anomalies are not discovered until the 20-week scan and in spite of recent medical advances the survival threshold is still around 24 weeks.
Currently, only 2 per cent of all UK abortions occur between 20 and 24 weeks and these are carried out when the women’s life is threatened or the baby terribly malformed.
If desperate women are denied a legal termination they will simply buy abortion pills on the internet or resort to unsafe abortionists at home or abroad.
(DR) John Cameron
Howard Place
St Andrews