Our ref: DE00000271254
Dear Mr Revell,
Thank you for your further email of 23 January.
I appreciate that you are unhappy with my reply of 18 January (our ref: DE00000265678). I hope it is helpful if I explain that one of the grounds for an abortion is that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped. Parliament decided there should not be a time limit for this ground and did not define serious handicap in the Act. Indeed, it chose to leave this to the expert judgement of the two doctors involved, who are required to form their own opinion about the seriousness of the handicap the child would suffer if born, taking into account the facts and circumstances of each individual case. About one per cent of abortions are performed due to the risk that the child would be born seriously handicapped and around 100 a year are performed at 24 weeks and over.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ guideline Termination of Pregnancy for foetal abnormality (1996) states that if an abnormality has been detected and two medical practitioners are of the opinion that there are grounds for a termination under the Abortion Act, then the woman should be advised that she has this option.
The woman needs to be given enough information and time to help her understand the nature of the foetal abnormality and the probable outcome of the pregnancy in order that she can make an informed decision about the options available to her. There is a national support programme to ensure women receive a high standard of antenatal screening and care. Training is underway to improve the technical knowledge, communication and counselling skills of the staff involved.
As requested, I have forwarded a copy of your email to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).I hope this reply clarifies the Government’s position on this matter.
Yours sincerely,
Dora East
Customer Service Centre
Department of Health
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