Sexual health priorities need to be political priorities

Clare Laxton is Parliamentary Officer at sexual health charity FPA and our guest blogger.

‘We have six priorities for sexual health for parliamentary candidates to sign up to this election. One of them is for all women in the UK, including Northern Ireland, to be able to access NHS funded abortions.

The last Parliament saw no less than five attacks on the Abortion Act 1967 and women’s access to abortion services and there is a risk that the next Parliament will be no different.

These attacks focused on issues such as reducing the time limit; imposing a waiting period or mandatory ‘counselling’ for all women seeking abortion; and prohibition of all abortion services apart from the cases of rape or if the life of the mother is at risk. All of these attacks sought to restrict access to safe and legal abortion services for the most vulnerable women who desperately need them.

The debate around the abortion time limit has continued since the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill was debated in Parliament, and the abortion time limit was last voted on, in May 2008. Despite David Cameron’s recent comments, the arguments for the abortion time limit to stay at 24 weeks are the same now as they were in 2008.

Parliament’s own Science and Technology Committee concluded then that they had not heard any evidence that survival rates for babies born before 24 weeks gestation had significantly improved. Organisations such as the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the British Association of Perinatal Medicine, supported this view and were clear that there was no scientific evidence to support a reduction in the abortion time limit.

There are many reasons why women have later abortions. Some women face barriers in accessing abortion services like long waiting lists or being delayed by an anti-choice health professional. Some women simply will not realise that they are pregnant until later on in their pregnancy or they might suspect they are pregnant but go into denial. Some women might have personal crises such as a relationship breakdown or loss of a job that means they no longer feel they can have a child.

Whatever the reason for accessing a later abortion FPA believes that women have the right to choose. Reducing the abortion time limit would have devastating consequences for the very small number of women who need to access a later abortion, often in very distressing circumstances.

FPA also campaigns to extend the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. For over forty years women in Northern Ireland have been denied the same reproductive rights as women in the rest of the UK. Women in Northern Ireland are forced to travel to Britain to access safe and legal abortion services. They not only have to pay for travel and accommodation but also the abortion itself, something that women in the rest of the UK can access for free.

Help defend abortion rights in the next Parliament by visiting the FPA website here to send a letter to your local candidates asking them to sign up to our sexual health priorities.’

FPA is a pro-choice organisation. This means we support a woman’s right to choose. We believe that women have the right to accurate, objective information and non directive support when making a decision about an unplanned pregnancy.