Shadow health secretary supports relaxing access to abortion

Source: http://rhetoricallyspeaking.blogspot.com

13.05.08

This is, at least, an approaching coherent approach to reforming abortion law: "Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, told MPs on Monday he would seek to make it easier for women to have an abortion at an early stage, while lowering the time limit for late procedures".

The relaxing of rules refers to support for the lifting of the requirement for the signatures of two doctors. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out across the political right - where, as has been demonstrated at length, the desire to reduce the week limit is part of an agenda towards the further restriction of access to abortion.

Making early abortion easier has been routinely rejected by social conservatives (often on spurious health grounds, often through the blanket assumption that women will denied appropriate care and left to fend for themselves) even as late abortion has been challenged.

As such, proponents of the week reduction who have professed only interest in medical science and the health of women will have some twisting to do if they also reject easier access to early abortion (with procedures that are less intrusive, less dangerous and avoid any of those emotive fetal hearbeats or "4D images.")

However, the problem with Lansley's position remains that only a few percent of abortions take place after week 20 - and that the women who need the procedure at that point are highly unlikely to be those who could have sought abortion earlier. Yes, early abortion should be easier to obtain, but there's still no compelling argument for the reduction of the week limit.

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