Abortion in the UK: scientific and moral incrimination | Nelly Huszcza
There is the significant impression that the British public is overwhelmingly in favour of abortion. However, an Angus Reid Public Opinion poll of 2010 found that almost half of Brits (47 per cent) are in favour of reducing the time limit for an abortion, which is currently up to 24 weeks of pregnancy- that’s six months. Meanwhile, a smaller percentage of 36 per cent deem this limit appropriate. And only 4 per cent of Britons believe this period should be extended.
This poll is reflective of a common opinion throughout the West: that for the standard majority of cases, abortion should be legal but limited to the early stages of pregnancy.
The 24-weeks time limit is not specific to the UK. This is also the threshold in a majority of US states. It is, however, the longest legal threshold existing in Europe; most European countries, such as France or Italy allow abortion only up to the end of the first trimester - 12 weeks.
At 24-weeks, which corresponds to the end of the second trimester, is synonymous with what is called the “viability period”. This is the point from which a baby has a 50 per cent chance of survival outside of the womb in cases where the mother gives birth to her baby prematurely, for example.
But this deadline implies that the life of a human baby is only worth preserving and protecting when it is, first, outside of the womb, and second, with a high chance of survival outside of it. Before that point, life is denied to the baby, despite scientific evidence being very clear on the moment when life actually starts.
Indeed, there was a time when we could have claimed ignorance on the topic. The life and growth of a baby inside her mother’s womb was once shrouded by mystery and myths. However, the science that is available to us today doesn’t leave any doubt about the moment life actually starts: when the ovum (egg) has been fertilised and creates a zygote. The zygote contains a combination of the DNA of each parent, and possesses all of the genetic information necessary to form a new individual. Features such as gender, eye and hair colour are already determined.
And the human development of this unique, living individual doesn’t stop there: at only 6 weeks, an ultrasound can detect the first cardiac activity, and ears and eyes also begin to form. By the end of the first trimester, the baby’s fingers now have their own unique fingerprints. If the mother touches her belly, the baby will be able to feel it. By 22 weeks, the baby hears, moves around and sucks her thumb.
All facts considered, it is hardly possible to claim that this life is either simply a part of the woman’s body or that it is merely a clump of cells, as pro-choice advocates often describe it. It is a new human life in the process of developing itself. In that respect, the viability period being used as a threshold into determining who is allowed to live and who is not seems to suffer from logical inconsistency. You either support the idea that life starts from conception, as scientific evidence suggests, or you don’t. Believing that a life is only valuable, only worth preserving when it is outside of the womb seems, at best is illogical and at worst is dangerously wrong.
Beyond a scientific standpoint, we can indeed question the morality of determining the value of a human life according to where it is located. In any other circumstances but abortion, this would be viewed as highly discriminatory.
In 2019 at the University College London Hospital, Bethan Simpson, a young mother in her 20th week of pregnancy discovered that her baby had been diagnosed with spina bifida. Her parents were given the choice to either terminate the pregnancy or attempt a surgery. The couple chose the latter. The baby was taken out of the womb via c-section, operated on to treat her condition and then put back in her mother’s belly to continue the rest of the pregnancy. If we follow the theory according to which a life becomes a person worth protecting only when outside of the womb, this story sounds strange. Was the child an independent, valuable person during his operation out of the womb, then turned back into a simple part of the woman’s body with no right to a life of its own once back inside?
One might suggest that what is really at play here is not so much the location of the child as a proof of her validity, but her ability to survive outside of the womb. However, it is worth remembering that the 24-weeks period is an arbitrarily chosen threshold when it comes to viability. As science and technology progresses, the chances of survival outside of the womb are constantly improving. In 2006, Amilia Taylor was born in the US at just 21 weeks. Fourteen years later, Amelia is a healthy, normal-functioning child. Yet she could have been legally killed in her country, had her mother decided so.
In any case, on a moral standpoint, we can ask ourselves if the ability to survive on your own should be itself a determining factor in deciding who is an individual worth protecting and who is not. Amelia would have had no chances of surviving without intense medical care and yet nobody would have dared deny the value of her life when she came out of her mother’s womb so early. Every medical resource was used to guarantee she would have the same chances at life as any other person in that hospital.
Vulnerability and codependence, therefore, can’t possibly be used as determining factors in deciding who lives and who dies. Indeed, young premature infants are not the only category of humans who stand no chance at life if left to their own devices. Is a three month old baby capable of surviving on his own without the care of his parents? Does an adult suffering from severe psychological or physical disability have any chance of survival without the care of medical professionals and loved ones? Nobody, absolutely nobody, would put into question the humanity of these fragile individuals, and no empathetic and rational person would think about taking their lives. It would be criminal, legally and morally, to do so.
Yet today, throughout the western world, it is considered the pinnacle of women’s rights to deny the humanity of pre-born babies. It is definitely normal to discard them when deemed inconvenient, despite scientific evidence proving they’re as much alive and unique individuals as you and I. In the vast majority of Europe, abortions are allowed either on request or on broad social grounds, which means hundreds of thousands of individuals can be disposed of each year because their mothers decided it.
It can be quite disturbing to think that in an enlightened, rational country like the UK, with a society that holds tolerance and compassion as the highest forms of virtue, over 200 000 fragile lives were still killed just in 2018 by abortion. Worse, when the heart of the Hippocratic oath insists on the doctors’ duty to save lives, it seems very ironic that abortions today are branded as healthcare, and are almost entirely funded by our National Health Service.
Is this really the meaning of progress?
