I remember reading somewhere that the most common topic of a blog post is apologising for not blogging more often so consider the recognition of that ‘fact’ that I just pulled from my memory as close to an apology for not blogging as I am willing to give.

I’m sorry for finishing last in the race, I’ll try harder next time Mom and Pa I promise.

So the election race is heating up and you know it was only a matter of time before one of the horses went and fell over a big science hurdle. It came as no surprise to me that it was David Cameron. In his comments in The Catholic Herald he said “I think that the way medical science and technology have developed in the past few decades does mean that an upper limit of 20 or 22 weeks would be sensible” about the upper limit for abortions.

Don’t you just love it when politicians offer their opinions about something they have absolutely no clue about? No? I thought not.

Has David Cameron been taking night classes in paediatrics? No? Didn’t think so.

Perhaps I am being a little harsh, maybe the science is open to debate? The Select Committee on Science and Technology’s last review of the Upper Gestational Limit in 2007 makes for sober reading, especially if Cameron gets his way.

The national EPICure study from 1995 reports that at 20-22 weeks 89% of babies are born dead.

That is born dead, not died after being in care. I don’t know what medical breakthroughs there have been in this field in the past 15 years any more than Cameron but I would hazard a guess that they haven’t been able to cure death. Of those 11% that survived not 1 child went on to survive with no impairments.

The report went on to say that although the survival rates are becoming out of date “survival in the last 10 years has risen to 40% of neonatal intensive care admissions at 24 weeks, although there has been little improvement in survival at gestations below this”.

Basically improvements have been made but not at the 20-22 week age that Cameron is proposing. Basically he is doing what he has always done, telling people what they want to hear. He is commenting to a Catholic readership to which abortion has always been a hot topic and he is telling them what they want to hear with little regard for the actual evidence or the repercussions of his proposals. He keeps banging on about the ‘unheard’ and ‘broken Britain’ when it is exactly these sorts of ideas that are part of the problem.

Darinka Aleksic, Campaign Co-ordinator at Abortion Rights in a blog post for Left Foot Forward summed this up perfectly;   

The vast majority of abortions in the UK are carried out before 13 weeks of pregnancy (90% in 2008) and 73% take place below 10 weeks. Only 1.5% of the total are carried out later than 20 weeks. Later abortion is disproportionately likely to involve teenage or vulnerable women. Typically it is requested after delayed recognition of pregnancy, after family or relationship breakdown or the onset of domestic violence. Fear of parents’ or partners’ reactions or the trauma of sexual assault or rape sometimes result in the ‘denial’ of pregnancy. Sometimes a woman simply does not know where to ask for help, her referral is delayed or she receives a late diagnosis of a serious foetal abnormality. In all these circumstances, the right to access an abortion is critical for a woman’s health and well-being.

David Cameron might be running the country in a few months time happy to condemn hundreds of families to needless suffering in order to appease some misguided Catholics and win a few votes. This is cynical electioneering at its very worst; I hope the Tories are proud.