Printed from: https://www.cmf.org.uk/advocacy/early-life/abortion/?index=160
'Yes!' Rebecca Brain is a part-time CMF staffworker and GP trainer I hate everything about abortion. I hate the way it's so often presented to young women as the right thing to do. I hate the way it encourages promiscuity and irresponsible sexual behaviour. I hate seeing a woman who...
Two stories about late termination of pregnancy for fetal abnormality have recently hit the headlines. In the first, a Cambridge student made an allegation of unlawful killing after discovering, in the official national statistics, a case of abortion after 24 weeks for cleft lip and palate.[1,2] The police will have...
Greg Gardner probes a ticking time bomb If a scientist discovered a risk factor that increases the chance of breast cancer by 30%, you'd have thought it would have spurred huge headlines and impassioned demands for action. With the exception of AIDS, no other health issue has been...
Do women experience psychological reactions after abortion? If so, what are they? Can we predict them? What do we make of the case of a woman who is applying for legal aid to sue the NHS for the psychological trauma she claims to have experienced after an abortion?[1] What are...
The Morning After Pill (MAP) is an umbrella term for various regimens of hormonal emergency contraception. It is licensed for use up to 72 hours after unprotected sexual intercourse, provided the woman's menstrual bleed is not overdue.[1] In January 2001, amidst much public and medical debate, MAP became available over the...
Sally, aged 38, called her GP to her home, suffering from perineal bleeding. She had never presented with psychological problems. The GP noted that her flat was remarkable for the number of soft toys that occupied every available space. When the GP asked Sally routine gynaecological questions, she burst into...
When abortion was decriminalised in the UK in 1967 its supporters argued that it should be more widely available because it was safer than a full term pregnancy. For decades this idea persisted. Slowly but steadily evidence has been accumulating that there are considerable health costs built into an abortion...
In a sharp turnaround of policy, the Irish Medical Council voted in September 2001 to adopt new guidelines on abortion. The ruling, which took immediate effect, permits the procedure when there is 'a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother' and represents a move away from the...
The Morning After Pill (MAP) was first publicly debated in the mid-eighties. It was judged not to cause early abortion under the terms of the 1967 Abortion Act by the then Attorney General in 1983.[1] The view now held by the medical establishment at large is that pregnancy starts after...
