Normally the pro-abortion movement is on the defense as pro-life groups worldwide do everything they can to protect as many babies as possible from abortion. The one area, in the United States and elsewhere, where pro-abortion groups are opening the door for more abortions is in the case of allowing non-physicians to put women’s health at risk by doing abortions.
LifeNews, on almost a weekly basis, chronicles women who have been killed or injured because of a botched legal abortion. In fact, in the state of Texas alone, approximately 1,000 women annual are hospitalized from complications related to an abortion.
Now, the British government has opened the door to endangering women further by allowing midwives to do abortions.Even pro-life people in Ireland are shocked by the news.
“The Pro Life Campaign has described as “shocking” the news that midwives in Britain will, for the first time, be permitted to take a “lead role” in performing abortions,” the group said.
“Midwives do the incredibly important job of helping to bring babies into the world. It is shocking to think that midwives who are trained to help ensure the safe delivery of babies will now be asked to play a primary role in deliberately ending the lives of unborn babies.”
Referring to the fact that over 200,000 abortions take place each year in the UK, Sherlock said that the British Government should be trying to reduce this figure rather than broaden the number of people who can carry out abortions.
“This move shows yet again that there is no such thing as restrictive abortion,” she concluded.
Midwives have been given the green light to take the main role in performing abortions.
New Department of Health rules say for the first time that midwives and nurses may ‘participate in the termination’. The controversial guidelines were last night condemned by MPs and anti-abortion campaigners.
Crossbench peer Lord Alton said: ‘It is particularly perverse that midwives, who do the beautiful work of helping babies into the world, will now be called upon to end the lives of children they might otherwise work to save.’
Under previous guidelines, midwives and nurses could undertake ‘certain actions’ in helping to terminate unwanted pregnancies.
But the new rules go much further and state clearly that a ‘nurse or midwife may administer the drugs used for medical abortions’.
The new guidance, which also rules out abortions carried out on the grounds of the sex alone, comes at a time of controversy over abortion law, which allows nearly 200,000 terminations to be performed in England and Wales each year. About a fifth of pregnancies end in abortion.
The 1967 law which governs abortion says that two doctors must approve the termination and the procedure must be conducted by a doctor.
In 1981, the courts gave approval for nurses to be involved, and Whitehall guidance restated the principle in 1999.
But the new rules for the first time say that a doctor needs only to approve and begin a termination. The bulk of the procedure can be carried out by nurses.
