Ian Hunter

@MrTCHarris He looks so very uncomfortable throughout this. Delightful!

You can tell from poor Zack's face that he's utterly perplexed by the idea that men and women are biologically different, but also doesn't want to contradict a BAME person because that's ray-cist. Oh, the life of a party leader!

@MadelaineLucyH But what Sarah Catt did at 39/40 is almost identical to regulated abortion care, except that she did it by deceiving the prescribing doctors as to her gestational status. Why is that behaviour being made lawful?

Comparing a woman mutilating herself in desperation to access a late-stage abortion to legal, regulated abortion care is like saying we should ban all cosmetic surgery because someone injected cement into their face at home and died. They are not the same thing.

@WarrenPeace_75 @Frances_Coppola @Lizardwizarde “General criminal law”? 🤔 You are going to have to try a bit harder than that. Medicnes regulation will regulate those in the medical and pharmacy professions. In these situations, they have either been deceived or are outside the jurisdiction.

@HuntersofPutney @Frances_Coppola @Lizardwizarde Yes, I’ve read it. The Abortion Act sets conditions for lawful treatment the offences sit in OAPA, the Medicines Regs, and general criminal law. Removing maternal liability doesn’t erase those. Your argument only works if you pretend OAPA was the sole source of criminality.

Any doctor who aborts a baby at nine months for reasons other than the very exceptional cases specified in the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act has committed a crime. The new law doesn't change this.

@WarrenPeace_75 @Frances_Coppola @Lizardwizarde Others who assist the pregnant woman could be liable. Ironically, that makes her more vulnerable, as they will ensure she does iron her own. But in any event, the idea that doctors can still be prosecuted for offences in the type of situation I outline is for the birds.

@WarrenPeace_75 @Frances_Coppola @Lizardwizarde It’s a lovely idea that an online pharmacy outside the UK can be liable under UK “Med Regs”. Fraud? But it’s the pregnant woman who would commit a fraud, if anyone, by lying to a doctor. I thought this legislation exculpates her and prohibits it being investigated?

@WarrenPeace_75 @Frances_Coppola @Lizardwizarde My point is that there is a clear pathway through which a pregnant woman can procure abortion medication (either by lying to a UK doctor, or by buying it online from overseas) and there will be no criminal liability for anyone. Do you disagree with that? If so, why?

@WarrenPeace_75 @Frances_Coppola @Lizardwizarde The Abortion Act doesn’t provide for any offences on the part of doctors or anyone else. I don’t want to sounds rude, but have you read it? You said above that there were other offences that are relevant. What are they, please?

@WarrenPeace_75 @Frances_Coppola @Lizardwizarde If doctors are risking life imprisonment by prescribing mifepristone without a f2f consultation, someone should let the BMA know, as their members should be warned…

@WarrenPeace_75 @Frances_Coppola @Lizardwizarde It would be great to have details of that other criminal offence, by the way.

@MadelaineLucyH You say “obviously”, but that’s not true. There are two well known cases where this was not the case (Catt & Foster).

(Obviously, late stage abortions ONLY occur in situations where the fetus is not viable or the mother is at serious risk of fatality and injury.) I find these posts very revealing of the ignorance of the anti-abortion lobby. No woman feels 'empowered' by having to have an abortion after 9 months of carrying her child. It's not something anyone does because they didn't get round to ending a pregnancy for nearly a year. The biggest category for late stage abortions? When the fetus has died and is septic, or the mother is a child and unable to safely give birth or undergo caesarean. This is a far right fantasy of the 'monstrous corrupt woman'.

@Jingerella66 @AllisonPearson Sarah Catt was neither insane nor coerced. Carla Foster was neither insane nor coerced.

The Abortion Act 1967 is still law. No one is going to be allowed to request an abortion over the 24 week limitation, unless they fit into the stringent criteria in that same act. Not one sane woman is ever going to request that. For those women who procure their own abortion, by illegal means, there is now no penal servitude. But they will not walk away scot-free. These women are either clinically insane, or they are being coerced by someone else. In either case, these women are not helped by imprisonment. They need lasting psychiatric care and support. The psychiatric care, in itself, will reveal exactly what they've done whilst insane or whilst being coerced by other(s). They will then have to carry that with them for the rest of their lives - they won't escape that life sentence, ever. They might even be rape victims, carrying that burden, too. But it's clear that these women are so absolutely desperate that see no other way - rather like suicides. This is the only that has changed. For those few desperate, insane, women.

Abortion time limit; 12 weeks: Germany, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Austria. 14 weeks: France, Spain. 24 weeks plus no penalty for mother aborting up to full term: Britain. Vying for the Infanticide Cup with People’s Republic of China.

@Adele_Thames There are cases where women have done it despite the threat of prosecution. We can’t pretend it doesn’t happen. It would be naive to think it won’t happen more in the absence of that threat.

People are really on this app claiming that the only thing stopping women aborting healthy babies late in pregnancy is the threat of prosecution. Rank misogyny.

@WarrenPeace_75 @Frances_Coppola @Lizardwizarde Doctors are of course regulated by their professional regulator. However, I can’t see the GMC bringing enforcement against a doctor who prescribes mifepristone in good faith to a woman following a remote appointment, in which she lies about her LMP date. Is this what you mean?

@WarrenPeace_75 @Frances_Coppola @Lizardwizarde Above you said that the amendment “doesn’t erase every other offence”. What are these other criminal offences? It is the entire landscape (together with the Abortion Act, obvs). I am not sure why you are saying otherwise.

@WarrenPeace_75 @Frances_Coppola @Lizardwizarde What are these other offences you think doctors may be committing? You seem reluctant to tell me? It’s s58/59 OAPA and defences thereto under the Abortion Act. That’s pretty much it, in practice. What am I missing?

@HuntersofPutney @Frances_Coppola @Lizardwizarde You're still treating ss58/59 as the whole universe. Mens rea attaches to the act the clinician intends, not to gestational facts a patient conceals. That's why telemedicine isn't criminal by default. The amendment still removes her liability only it doesn't repeal anything else

@quiet241212 @Camelliaalexa2 @MadelaineLucyH That’s a good point.

@HuntersofPutney @Camelliaalexa2 @MadelaineLucyH Cleft lip is often but not always linked to serious chromosomal abnormality. Nowadays the link can be tested. Twenty years ago it was much harder.

Ok when we say a third-trimester fetus is 'non-viable' we don't mean 'I don't want a baby without one arm' or 'I don't want a baby with a learning disability'. We mean the child is likely to die during birth or immediately after. Usually in a great deal of pain. That's the bar, legally and medically for an abortion at that stage. No doctor is going to perform a 9-month abortion because the child could have autism. That's a fantasy.

@Camelliaalexa2 @MadelaineLucyH Of course, under the new law, a pregnant woman could terminate at any gestation, using medication procured from overseas or by deception, for any reason - cleft lip, DS, wrong sex - without legal consequence or any investigation.

@Camelliaalexa2 @MadelaineLucyH Down syndrome is tested for in first trimester. Non-invasive testing is now available for this. Terminations almost exclusively happen in first trimester or early second trimester.

@Camelliaalexa2 @MadelaineLucyH This illustrates why it is unwise to open this debate. It means the nation would have to have serious conversation about what is a “serious handicap” for these purposes, and justifies a termination, or what other grounds might be needed where abortion on demand is restricted.

@Camelliaalexa2 @MadelaineLucyH So the statement that “you can abort for cleft lip” is technically true but does require some context. I would be surprised if you could find two doctors who would perform such a termination today, but never say never.