Printed from: https://archive.cmf.org.uk/advocacy/pressrelease/?id=26
Published: 2nd July 2004
Peter Saunders, General Secretary of CMF said, 'Recent reports of babies born alive following abortion procedures being simply left to die have provoked huge media and public outrage. We applaud the BMA’s decision, at its annual conference, to work with the General Medical Council, NHS and appropriate Royal Colleges to ensure that babies born alive as a result of termination of pregnancy procedures receive the same medical care as that available to other babies.
'Something needed to be done, and the BMA is right to back this call from its student members to treat babies surviving abortion procedures with the dignity and respect they deserve.
'This decision highlights huge inconsistencies in the current abortion law which allows abortion, for effectively social reasons, up to 24 weeks. In 2002, there were 1,354 abortions of babies aged 22 weeks or more in England and Wales, but many of these babies would have survived if they had been allowed a natural birth.
In a major study at the University of Minnesota published in the journal, Paediatrics, earlier this year, two out of three [66%] babies born at 23 weeks during 1996-2000 survived with good neonatal care.'
Peter concluded, 'The law has created a bizarre situation whereby babies of the same age and with identical chances of survival can be aborted if inside the womb, but receive full neonatal care if outside it. The Government must urgently address this ambiguity.'
Steven Fouch (CMF Head of Communications) 020 7234 9668
Alistair Thompson on 07970 162 225
Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF) was founded in 1949 and is an interdenominational organisation with over 5,000 doctors, 900medical and nursing students and 300 nurses and midwives as members in all branches of medicine, nursing and midwifery. A registered charity, it is linked to over 100 similar bodies in other countries throughout the world.
CMF exists to unite Christian healthcare professionals to pursue the highest ethical standards in Christian and professional life and to increase faith in Christ and acceptance of his ethical teaching.
