Scientifically the debate should not be about when life begins, because we know that. The human life begins at conception and grows into different stages from there – in and out of the womb.

The debate should be when is the human life okay to kill. When it has no brain? When it is a week away from heartbeat? When it is three weeks away from being able to survive out of the womb?

But let us not fool ourselves about killing a human life, it is just “at what stage do we want to kill it.”

I’ll spell it out, Jack Straw, John Prescott, Harriet Harmthem, Peter Mandelsson, John Reid are all Former British Communist Party Members.

Many other members of our Establishment are Socialist Sympathysers.

Now, Communists don’t much care who they rule over, but of Course the British themselves are never going to Vote for EU rule so they must be gotten rid of.

Jack Straw once said ‘The British are not worth saving as a race’

Parliament (The Lib Lab Con Leadership are ALL Pro EU ) has presided over 6 Million abortions, Dawn Primorolo is right now hoping to Push a Bill through Parliament to sterilise British schoolgirls.

Add to this Mass mass mass Immigration / emmigration and you can see that they are ‘creating a new race of People called Europeans’ which is typical Soviet Ideology.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/865

I can spell it out in one word, Genocide.

I know what you are thinking, but surely they will be wiping their own race out, no, they are the Elite in the EU, there are thousands of them free to intermingle and intermarry, we the Proles on the other hand, well, who cares.

You see, you just have to think on a bigger scale.

Demographic decline of the British and Europeans
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=q71iddDm_U4#

we can count on the Immigrant vote to keep us in.
http://www.bobpiper.co.uk/2008/05/not_more_bloody_initiatives.php#comments

Nadine suggests that a 20 week foetus will move away from a needle – i.e. a painful stimulus. A fully grown chimp on the other hand is much more developed, neurologically and in every other way. The chimp will not just move away from the stimulus but will shout and scream at you! And yet we are happy to to cause greater suffering to the great apes and every other species than to a mass of cells.

I agree that a woman should have made up her mind by this point and it is always her welfare that should be considered but the abortion limit is not a rational discussion when based on pain instead of morality.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/may/09/health.medicalresearch

Having said that, the survival statistics depend on whether ’survival’ is measured by the number of children that make it to the ICU alive versus making out of hospital for good, which really muddies the water:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/oct/27/1

I’m not trying to define the parameters of life by reference to cortical and pulmonary functions, I’m pointing out that at 22-23 weeks gestation, the vast majority of foetuses that are born prematurely will die, no matter how much effort is put in by doctors, simply because key organs and system are insufficiently developed to sustain life outside the environment of the womb.

Why not the heart (beat within the first month). Why not the liver? Why not any other vital organ?

Why not agreing on the fact that there is no scientific proof at all on this subject? This is what I call “truth”.

“being reasonable doesn’t often feature in debates on abortion” said a clever Tory in a letter…

So far as the disparity in improvement in survival rates before and after the 24 week boundary are concerned what you have to appreciate is that doctors are working here at what are the very boundaries of what is possible.

Its a question of how the foetus develops and at what point in the gestational process certain key physiological systems being to develop and maturity – its not a uniform process but one in which different things happen at different time.

The key issues are neurological development, the bulk of which takes place after 24 weeks including all the structure necessary for higher brain function and motor control, and the development of the lungs, which only begin to mature during the third trimester.

A week’s work of additional development in the womb, particularly when it comes to the maturation of the lungs, can make a massive difference to the chance of survival – so much so that when faced with a women who may into labour at 22-23 weeks, doctors will do everything they possibly can (without risking the life of the foetus) to delay the birth as long as possible in order to get over the 24 boundary, because they know that if they can hang on for that long then the chances of a live birth and neonate who survives to discharge is so much greater.

This doesn’t seem very rational to me…

Is he as good a doctor/researcher as Dorries makes out?

Actually, he is – his work is first rate and, in places, brilliant.

If anyone is unfortunate enough to find themselves in the position of their unborn foetus requiring correcting surgery in the womb and it all goes fine and they end up giving birth to a healthy neonate then parts of the thanks they should be giving should go to Dr Anand, whose work is leading to significant enhancements in clinical practice.

Is any of this relevant to the abortion debate?

No, and its a real shame that the value in his work is being overshadowed by its co-option by the anti-abortion lobby.

At best his work presents an argument for use of anaesthesia in abortions carried out after 16-18 weeks gestation and, even then, I would argue that the real benefit of such a practice rests in considerations of the psychological well-being of the mother – if we are to have legal abortions, and I fully support the retention of the current 24 week limit – then we should ensure that the procedures in use for terminating pregnancy are as humane as we can possibly make them.