India – A deliverance: On pregnancy termination bill

A deliverance: On pregnancy termination bill

January 31, 2020

Extending the period of medical termination of pregnancy to 24 weeks is a boon for many

The borders of viability of a particular process are often only as restrictive as the technology on which it rides. In some cases, as science advances, the elastic borders of viability will weave out to accommodate much more than they did in the past. The Centre’s move to extend the limit of medical termination of pregnancy to 24 weeks is a sagacious recognition of this, and needs to be feted. The extension is significant, the government reasoned, because in the first five months of pregnancy, some women realise the need for an abortion very late. Usually, the foetal anomaly scan is done during the 20th-21st week of pregnancy. If there is a delay in doing this scan, and it reveals a lethal anomaly in the foetus, 20 weeks is limiting. Obstetricians argue that this has also spurred a cottage industry of places providing unsafe abortion services, even leading, in the worst of cases, to the death of the mother.

Continued: https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/a-deliverance-the-hindu-editorial-on-pregnancy-termination-bill/article30695656.ece

31.01.2020

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Lifesaving treatment for babies born at 22 weeks doesn’t mean abortion law should change

Lifesaving treatment for babies born at 22 weeks doesn’t mean abortion law should change

October 25, 2019
Dominic Wilkinson, Consultant Neonatologist and Professor of Ethics, University of Oxford

When new guidance relating to the outcome and medical care of babies born extremely prematurely was recently released, it led some to call for UK abortion law to be revised.

This was because one of the new recommendations from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine is that it is sometimes appropriate to provide resuscitation and active medical treatment for babies born at 22 weeks gestation (four and a half months before their due date). This is a week earlier than was recommended in the last version of the framework, published in 2008.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/lifesaving-treatment-for-babies-born-at-22-weeks-doesnt-mean-abortion-law-should-change-125845

Born Alive Abortion Survivors: Parsing Fact from Fiction

Born Alive Abortion Survivors: Parsing Fact from Fiction

March 11, 2019
by Libby Anne

Last week, a friend sent me an article bearing the headline They Are Real: Meet Born-Alive Abortion Survivors. Could I maybe blog about it, she asked? This article led me down to a rabbit hole with numbers that kept getting bigger. When I reached an article that argued that there are 44,000 abortion survivors living in the U.S. today, I knew we had a definitional problem. What is really going on here?

The article my friend sent me profiled five individuals it labeled “abortion survivors.” These individuals are real people. The first one profiled Gianna Jesson, whose mother had a saline abortion at 30 weeks in 1977, and Gianna survived. When she was born alive, she was provided with care and given up for adoption. Melissa Ohden’s biological mother had a saline abortion at 31 weeks in 1977; she, too, survived and was provided care.

Continued: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2019/03/born-alive-abortion-survivors-parsing-fact-from-fiction.html

Ireland – Legislating for abortion is very complex and a clear guiding principle is required

Opinion: Legislating for abortion is very complex and a clear guiding principle is required
The ‘yes’ side contained a wide range of views about when abortion should be permitted – the government can’t please them all, writes Professor Dermot Cox.

Fri Nov 30, 2018
Dermot Cox

THE EIGHTH AMENDMENT did not prohibit abortion – in fact it never mentioned the word abortion, rather it articulated a guiding principle that the foetus had rights that were on par with those of the mother.

The government’s rationale for repealing the eighth was that it tied their hands to legislate in this area. Now it has stated that it will introduce legislation on abortion as this reflects the will of the people in the referendum.

Continued: https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/opinion-legislating-for-abortion-is-very-complex-and-a-clear-guiding-principle-is-required-4367894-Nov2018/