Feature

Let the woman decide

Abortion on request is still the goal, says Jane Roe

The current abortion law has allowed some three million women to resolve a personal crisis which could have wrecked their lives and forced them to bring an unwanted child into the world, but many of them, and others, have been poorly served.

About 87% of abortions in this country are carried out before thirteen weeks. This percentage could be increased by making it easier for women to obtain help, thus reducing the number of late abortions and the physical and emotional stress they cause.

Horror stories of backstreet abortions which were common before abortion became legal have been replaced by horror stories of women struggling for many traumatic weeks within the NHS system.

For example, an unmarried eighteen year old called Mary went to her GP when she was eight weeks pregnant to ask for an abortion. He promised to arrange for her to see a local consultant and told her to return in a week for the details. When she went back he said he had forgotten but did eventually make an appointment. When Mary arrived at the hospital the consultant told her he had just finished his shift and she would have to make another appointment. She finally saw him when fourteen weeks pregnant and was told it was too late for an NHS operation.

Abortion has been legal in this country for more than 20 years but stories like Mary’s are not unusual. Finding two NHS doctors willing to approve a termination and carry it out quickly depends far more on a woman’s luck and where she lives than on her reasons for wanting the operation.

In North Devon or Tyneside the chances are over 90%, but in Hastings only 23% and in Leeds 13%. In the West Midlands women are usually referred to an NHS pregnancy counselling service and then to a private clinic where they will be encouraged to pay unless they cannot afford it.

This lottery depends mainly on the attitude of local consultant gynaecologists and on the willingness of health authorities to treat abortion as an emergency procedure, of sufficient importance to warrant adequate capital funding and running costs.

In the past 12 months some doctors have come under heavy pressure from administrators to make savings so they can balance the books before the end of the financial year. GPs and family planning doctors report an increased reluctance by some hospitals to see women with unwanted pregnancies.

On the other hand, some districts have taken drastic steps to provide more by, for example, employing another gynaecologist who is willing to do ‘social’ abortions, setting up a special daycare unit or paying for agency arrangements.

But fewer than half of all abortions in England and Wales are provided by the NHS. Non-profit making pregnancy advisory services estimate that about 25% of all the pregnant women to come to them have faced delay or refusal from NHS doctors.

Obviously some women opt for a private abortion for anonymity or a quicker service, but most would prefer to be treated by the NHS and simply to not have the choice.

The Pro-Choice Alliance is a national umbrella group, set up two years ago by the major abortion campaigning groups to fight jointly for equality of NHS abortion services and a change in the law to allow abortion on request in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Its main aim is to let women choose for themselves whether or not they need an abortion.

The group is sure that nobody asks for an abortion without having considered carefully the possibility of carrying on with the pregnancy and the effect this would have on their lives. Given accurate information and the advice of a doctor or trained counsellor, a woman will know best how an unplanned pregnancy would affect her.

Pro-Choice Alliance believes the role of the doctor should be to help the patient come to her own decision and then provide safe medical treatment, not to decide whether she ‘needs’ or ‘deserves’ an abortion.

Changing the current law to allow abortion on request in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, backed up by improvements in NHS abortion services, would bring Britain into line with most other western countries and plug the gaps left by the well intentioned but inadequate law of 1967.

Pro-Choice Alliance has just published a leaflet explaining its case for these changes which it is sending to MPs, members of the House of Lords, health authorities, community health councils and other decision makers. Copies are available from the Pro-Choice Alliance, 54 Grange Road, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 1TU.