Amillia shows 24 weeks is too late to abort
Pressure was growing yesterday to shorten the 24-week limit on abortions. Medical experts and Church leaders say that the law is outdated and claim that medical advances would ensure the survival of as many as 2,000 foetuses aborted each year in Britain.
Pictures published last week of baby Amillia Taylor, believed to be the world's most premature newborn to survive, have fuelled the debate that the 1967 Abortion Act should be reviewed. Amillia was born in October at just 21 weeks and weighing a mere 10oz. Now her birth has prompted calls for the abortion limit to be reduced to 20 weeks.
Professor Stuart Campbell, a consultant at the Create Health Clinic and formerly head of obstetrics and gynaecology at King's College School of Medicine, says he no longer carries out late-term abortions because advances in neo-natal care have led to the survival of a rising number of babies born between 21 and 24 weeks.
"If the decision were mine I would immediately reduce the termination limit to 20 weeks," he said. "To me it seems utterly illogical that, in adjacent wards, one doctor is struggling to save a baby delivered at 23 weeks while another is aborting a healthy baby of the same age."
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, leader of Britain's Roman Catholics, said there had been a "moral awakening" and called for "open debate" on the subject.
In 2004 a record 185,400 women had pregnancies terminated in England and Wales. Almost nine out of 10 abortions were carried out at under 13 weeks but a growing number - an estimated 1,860 - occurred after 20 weeks. The law permits abortion for "social reasons" up to 24 weeks.
By Olga Craig, Sunday Telegraph