Abortion

(asked on 13th January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department takes to ensure that the upper gestational limits on abortion are guided by the latest science on foetal viability; and whether his Department has made an assessment of the implications for its policies of the findings on foetal viability from 22 weeks gestation in (a) Riley K., et al., Survival and neurodevelopmental morbidity at 1 year of age following extremely preterm delivery over a 20-year period: a single centre cohort study, published in Acta Paediatrica in 2008, (b) MBRRACE-UK Supplementary report on survival up to one year of age for babies born before 27 weeks gestational age — For Births in Great Britain from January to December 2016, Maternal, Newborn and Infant Clinical Outcome Review Programme published in 2019 and (c) Håkansson S. et al., Proactive Management Promotes Outcome in Extremely Preterm Infants: A Population-Based Comparison of Two Perinatal Management Strategies, published in Pediatrics in 2004.


Answered by
Maggie Throup Portrait
Maggie Throup
This question was answered on 21st January 2022

It would be a matter for Parliament to determine whether changes to the law on abortion should be made. As with other matters of conscience, abortion is an issue on which the Government adopts a neutral stance and allows hon. Members to vote according to their moral, ethical or religious beliefs.

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