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Looney England: New Interpretation of UK Law Could Permit Nurses to Perform Surgical Abortions

By Meg Jalsevac

BRITAIN, March 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A recent study printed in the British Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care suggests that nurses should be legally permitted to perform early, surgical abortions as long as a licensed doctor is in charge – but not necessarily actually present.  The authors of the study claim that their conclusions are based on a new interpretation of the current Abortion Act in Britain and the ensuing case law.

The study was performed by consultant gynecologist Vincent Argent and Lin Pavey, a nurse and former clinic manager of the British Pregnancy Advice Service.

Under the present interpretation of the 1967 Abortion Act, a licensed doctor must perform the actual surgical abortion in a government approved hospital or clinic though nurses routinely work with the doctor throughout the procedure and may administer medication to induce early abortion. 

The study is quoted: “Our analysis of the Abortion Act 1967 and the RCN v DHSS case shows that registered nurses and midwives could currently perform surgical abortions themselves as long as a medical practitioner is in overall charge even if the medical practitioner is not physically present.”

Supporters of the new interpretation have expressed the hope that such a broad interpretation could “offer improvements in the quality and access of provision for early termination of pregnancy.”  They have articulated the need to have the data promptly reviewed by the Department of Health, the General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Past chairperson of the Abortion Law Reform Association (now known as Abortion Rights) and family planning nurse, Madelaine Ward applauded the results of the Argent & Pavey study saying, “In so many areas of health provision, nurses have provided improvements in access to and quality of care. The time is now right for nurses to be trained to perform early surgical abortions under the supervision of a registered medical practitioner.  I hope lobbying by the professions will now happen without delay.”

Anthony Ozimic, political secretary of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), disagreed and condemned the newly suggested interpretation saying that it was a contradiction of the abortion rights efforts to provide ‘safe, legal abortion’.  “The pro-abortion lobby claim that so-called safe, legal abortion was necessary to safeguard women’s health — yet having achieved legal abortion, the pro-abortion lobby now wants to remove safeguards by getting nurses to do doctors’ dirty work for them.”

Ozimic concluded with the accusation that the new analysis was a mere ploy to ever increase the numbers of abortions. “This proposal would seem to have less to do with women’s health and more to do with an ideological agenda to maximize the numbers of abortions, in the light of fewer and fewer doctors willing to butcher babies in the womb.”

Britain currently has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in all of Europe and, despite a recent initiative to make the Morning After Pill more accessible, the number of abortions has sky-rocketed in the past months.

Read Previous LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
‘Contraceptive’ Push by Abortion Business Leads to Largest Ever Surge in UK Abortion
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/feb/07020807.html

UK Abortion Rates Continue to Climb Despite Increasing Emergency Contraception Use
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/sep/06091507.html
 

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