This is such a hard one for me! My friend Chirag sent me the link to the article which I’ve pasted below, saying that we need to do something about lowering the limit to 20 weeks. I understand the case for both sides and I think it is really difficult.

This is such a hard one for me! My friend Chirag sent me the link to the article which I’ve pasted below, saying that we need to do something about lowering the limit to 20 weeks. I understand the case for both sides and I think it is really difficult.

On the one hand if it is lowered, if the ‘mother to be’ really wants to have a termination she’ll probably find a way to do it and that may lead her to more harm than good.

Yes, it’s a life and I don’t agree with killing whether it’s called a foetus or a baby! However, raising a child and not wanting it would surely, be cruel.

We are so over populated and although that is not a reason to terminate a life, can we look after the children who exist already?

What if the ‘mother to be’ became pregnant through forced intercourse? Should she be made to go through 9 months of carrying the baby resulting from that? There are many reasons why she may not have discovered her pregnancy before the 20/24 weeks are up or why she may not have been able to ‘face it’.

What if you just don’t know you’re pregnant? Some women continue to have their period whilst they’re pregnant so how are you supposed to know and then make a well thought through decision in time?

Jon Craig
Chief political correspondent
Updated:05:50, Wednesday May 21, 2008

Moves to lower the time limit on abortion from 24 weeks have been rejected by MPs at the end of a high-charged debate on controversial social legislation.

Despite emotional pleas for a change in the law by Conservative MPs Nadine Dorries and Ann Widdecombe as the debate reached its climax, the Government comfortably defeated four different proposals.

In the closest vote, 233 MPs including David Cameron and most Tory MPs backed a cut to 22 weeks, but 304 MPs voted against, giving the Government a majority of 71.

In the other key vote, 190 MPs backed a cut to 20 weeks, but 332 voted against, giving the Government a majority of 142 - a crushing defeat that bitterly disappointed campaigners for a change in the law.

Earlier, a 12-week limit was rejected by 393 votes to 71, a Government majority of 322, and 16 weeks by 387 votes to 84, a Government majority of 303.

Roman Catholic Cabinet ministers Ruth Kelly, Des Browne and Paul Murphy voted for 12 weeks, a move proposed by the leading Catholic Conservative MP Edward Leigh.

During the Commons debate, the proposer of a 20-week limit, former nurse Ms Dorries, told MPs how she had witnessed a “botched” termination while working on a ward.

“A little boy was aborted into a cardboard bed pan which was thrust into my arms,” she said.

“As I stood and looked in that cardboard bed pan this little boy was gasping, through mucous and amniotic fluid for his breath and I stood with him in a sluice, in my arms in a bed pan, for seven minutes while he gasped for his breath and a botched abortion, which became a live birth, became a death seven minutes later.

“And I knew at that moment, while I stood with that little boy in my arms that one day I would have the opportunity to stand and defend babies like him, because what I thought we were committing that day was murder.”

http://www.heenamodi.com/2008/05/21/should-abortions-remain-legal-at-24-weeks-or-should-it-be-lowered/

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