Charity calls for faster access to NHS abortions
Women should have to wait no longer than 72 hours for an abortion once they have decided to terminate their pregnancy, according to fpa (formerly the Family Planning Association).
The organisation claims that women are being denied access to safe, early abortions because of unnecessary delays in treatment.
Chief executive Anne Weyman commented: ‘Some women wait a very long time to get an abortion and some of those women also have great difficulty getting it paid for by the National Health Service.’
fpa’s report, ‘Early abortions: promoting real choice for women’, highlights huge variations in abortion services across the UK. For example, in parts of Lincolnshire nearly 80% of abortions were carried out before the pregnancy reached ten weeks – often making the procedure far less invasive through use of the abortion pill – while in nearby Norfolk just over a quarter of the abortions were this early.
The Government’s current target for carrying out abortions is three weeks after a first consultation, but fpa claims that some health authorities can take twice as long to offer an appointment.
fpa suggests that such waits could be reduced if the system were streamlined. That could mean allowing women to refer themselves directly to abortion services, and allowing nurses to be trained to carry out early abortions.
Such measures would require changes to the 1967 Abortion Act, and today’s report from fpa has been presented to the All-party Parliamentary Pro-choice Group in a bid to gain political backing for the recommendations.
Anti-abortion campaigners have been highly critical of fpa’s stance, with LIFE claiming that the demands represent “abortionism at its most ruthless and mindless”. Spokesperson Nuala Scarisbrick commented: “If the FPA gets its way women will be under even greater pressure to be conveyor-belted into the abortoirs – and treated like cattle. They won’t be doing the choosing. Others will.
