Minister's response on abortion

by Timothy Elphick
ABORTIONS after 24 weeks on the grounds of late diagnosis of severe disability will not be allowed in private hospitals, the health minister Virginia Bottomley has assured the Catholic Union.
In a letter to the Union Mrs Bottomley said that changes to the abortion laws introduced by the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act would not allow "significant numbers of abortions up to term".
The minister stressed that in 1988 only 23 abortions over 24 weeks had been carried out in the UK. And she believed "that the number of such abortions over 24 weeks will remain small."
Philip Daniel, chair of the Union's issues committee, said he appreciated Mrs Bottornley's answer on specific points, "although she well knows we cannot accept the principles as such since we are unable to get a ministerial assurance on the matter of continued restriction of late terminations to NHS establishments during the passage of the act."
The Union and the Guild of Catholic Doctors will "carefully monitor" the implementation of the act, said Mr Daniel.
In response to the minister's suggestion that the methods used to effect late abortions were a clinical matter, Mr Daniel said that such procedures as had been commonly used prompted "extreme reluctance" on the part of medical staff involved in aborting full-term babies.