Chris McCafferty (Calder Valley, Labour)

I do not recall having said that. What I am saying is that putting restrictions in the way of women who have already made a difficult and, as my hon. Friend Mrs. Curtis-Thomas said, traumatic decision—she used that word about three times—is just prolonging the agony. Doing so is cruel and unnecessary. There are increased costs to society, but no benefits.

Mr. Gale— [ Interruption. ] Sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker—[Hon. Members: "Sir Michael!"]—I mean Sir Michael; I am not sure how to address you in this debate. Society has shown impressive creativity in the past, in introducing all sorts of ingenious restrictions on access to abortion, none of which have shown any evidence-based benefit to the people involved. In most countries, and indeed here, the legal framework and the requirements for an abortion do not reflect the needs of women with an unwanted pregnancy; rather, they reflect the personal morality and the misconceptions of people who are both professionally inexperienced and personally not involved. Why is it so difficult to do the most obvious thing—give the power to decide to those who are most directly involved? Women carry a completely disproportionate share of the burden in reproduction, but where are their rights? And tonight we are talking about taking them away.

I say to the male Members of this House—they are in the considerable majority—that I recognise that they cannot get pregnant, let alone have an abortion themselves. I suspect that most of them are profoundly relieved that that is the case. Most women would believe that we would not be here having this debate if men could do that, but it is in men's own interests to maintain the reproductive health of women, because most are directly affected by and dependent on it. They should, therefore, be arguing not to restrict women's rights to choose, but for conditions that permit women to end an unwanted pregnancy, if necessary, in the best way possible for them and without unnecessary suffering. As we heard earlier, termination of a wanted pregnancy must be one of the very hardest decisions that women and couples have to make. As my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby said, it is traumatic.

The NICE guidelines, which I mentioned earlier, are very clear. Those new guidelines say that pregnant women should ideally—I stress that word—be offered an ultrasound scan at between 18 weeks and 20 weeks, which means up to 21 weeks. As I said, Members in all parts of the House always campaign for NICE guidelines, and I have to assume that that one is not an exception. I also say to Members that unless they do not accept the NICE guidance in this particular case, it would be wholly inconsistent for them to vote to lower the upper limit to 22 weeks or even less, because they would clearly be removing any element of choice from the process. Any reduction below the current 24-week limit would leave little or no room for women and couples to make a responsible, considered choice when a potentially serious abnormality is detected.

Of course, I agree that legislation should always adapt to take account of scientific and technical progress, but all the recent independent peer-reviewed research has shown very clearly that survival at below 24 weeks' gestation has not improved, despite advances in other aspects of antenatal care and the care of premature babies. When the 24-week limit was approved by Parliament in 1990, a key argument was that that was the stage at which the foetus was considered viable. It is the considered view of the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Nursing and the British Association of Perinatal Medicine that there is no evidence of a significant improvement in the survival of extremely premature babies below 24 weeks' gestation in the UK within the last 18 years. The recent EPICure and Trent studies that were referred to earlier also say the same thing. There is no significant statistical improvement in survival under 24 weeks.

I have said many times in this Chamber—I will keep on saying it until Members start to listen—that the best way of reducing the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions is to improve women's access to contraception, as well as educating women and men about sexual health, and to make sexual health and relationship education compulsory in all our schools. In contrast, any reduction in the upper time limit would force a very small number of vulnerable women to continue a pregnancy against their will. Proposals to reduce the time limit do not even take into consideration the terrible plight of women who have a wanted pregnancy but discover a foetal abnormality at a later stage.

I, too, want to see a reduction in the number of women seeking abortion—I imagine that all Members in all parts of the Committee do—and a reduction in the gestation period at which abortions take place, but late-term abortions are very rare. In 2006, less than 1.5 per cent. of all abortions took place after 20 weeks, and of those, a mere 0.7 per cent.—a tiny fraction—were carried out at 22 weeks or later.

I say to Members that they should vote for 22 weeks or less if they really are anti-choice. They should vote for 22 weeks or less if they really believe that a woman should be required to continue a late-diagnosed pregnancy even if her health is at risk or the foetus is abnormal. They should vote for 22 weeks or less if they do not believe that such difficult decisions should, wherever possible, be made within the family. For the purposes of giving the Committee an opportunity to vote positively on 24 weeks—23 weeks and six days is the medical definition of 24 weeks, the status quo—I say to Members that they should support the status quo if they are pro-life, pro-quality of life or pro a woman's life. They should support the status quo if they are pro women's rights—after all, women's rights are human rights. They should support the status quo if they are pro reproductive rights, because reproductive rights are also human rights. They should support the status quo if they are pro-humanity, because any reduction of the upper limit would be cynical, cruel, ill-informed and inhumane.

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