THE
P RTAL
November 2011
Page 10
Termination of pregnancy
Dr Chris Davies takes a personal view
I have been asked to provide my personal views on a very difficult subject area for all, whether you are
the patient, a parent, a politician or a health Professional. I write in the context of being a full time General
Practitioner in the West Midlands over the last 24 years.
The subject has recently been in the national
newspapers [September 2011] following MPs Frank
Field and Nadine Dorries’ proposed amendment to
the Health and Social Care bill – they were suggesting
the right to the provision of state funded pre-
termination counselling from independent providers
and were heavily defeated in Parliament. There is also
the current ’40 days for life’ global campaign raising
awareness of the tragedy of abortion [1].
The General Medical Council [GMC] provides
guidance where there may be a conflict over carrying
out or giving advice about a procedure e.g. termination
of pregnancy, as follows – ‘If carrying out a particular
procedure or giving advice about it conflicts with
your religious or moral beliefs and this conflict might
affect the treatment or advice you provide, you must
explain this to the patient and tell them they have the
right to see another doctor. You should make sure
that information about alternative services is readily
available to all patients.’[2]
Statistics
This is necessary to provide further [and somewhat
stark] information regarding this so you have some
idea of the number and type of terminations relative
to the birth rate in England and Wales in 2010. That
year, the overall number of live births was 723,165 [3];
for the same year, the total number of terminations
was 196,109 of which 189,574 were performed on
‘residents of England and Wales’; the highest abortion
rate was 33 per 1000 for women aged 19 and 20 years;
91% were carried out at under 13 weeks of gestation
[4]. Just a quick calculation indicates that the abortion
total [for England and Wales residents] as a percentage
of overall live births was 26.2%.
Pregnancy
The condition of being pregnant is a physiological
st