’Dignity’ clause incorporated into Abortion Reform Bill

A late alteration to the Abortion Reform Bill was added last week, to ensure any remains are treated with dignity.

Legislative Council last week approved the bill. Numerous, mainly technical, amendments were approved, while attempts by Bishop Peter Eagles to impose new restrictions were unsuccessful.

However, MLCs agreed to introduce a replacement clause to cover the rules for what should happen after a procedure.

The obligation of medical professionals in the rare situation of a baby born alive following an abortion procedure - to take all reasonable steps to keep the baby alive - had already been established.

But Kerry Sharpe MLC sought to bring in clearer rules on what to do with foetal tissue after a procedure.

Her amendment means the Department of Health and Social Care is obliged to issue guidelines for the ’appropriate disposal of a foetus’.

Mrs Sharpe said she decided to look into practices in different jurisdictions.

’I discovered that disposal of foetal tissue is a subject which has largely not been adequately dealt with, possibly because it involves confronting the bloody realities of termination,’ she said.

’But I believe we must confront reality and ensure that foetal tissue is always treated with dignity and is always disposed of in a manner which is commensurate with the fact that it once held the potential for an independent life.’

Current disposal methods in England and Wales vary across hospitals and clinics but foetal tissue of a pre-24-week gestation is usually incinerated. Foetal material from a post-24-week gestation is required by law to be registered as a stillbirth and the body to be either cremated or buried.

In Scotland, however, the minimum standard for disposal of any foetal tissue is cremation and where that is not available, burial.

That, said Mrs Sharpe, was more in line with current practice at Noble’s Hospital.

The current guidelines state that if the tissue can be recognised as a baby, ’parents can arrange for burial or cremation or take the foetal tissue home with them as they wish’.

Mrs Sharpe added: ’Even if the woman expresses no particular wish over the disposal of the tissue, so long as there is a recognisable foetus, according to Noble’s consultants, the tissue will be sent to the mortuary in its own container, recorded and collected by a funeral director, to be taken to the crematorium.

’If there is no recognisable foetus, foetal tissue is currently sent to the pathology department and incinerated with other specimens.’

She said it was important that the DHSC draws up a policy ’which ensures the continuation of the current level of respect shown towards foetal tissue and, in addition, the department should adopt the element of the 2012 Scottish directive which states that no foetal tissue should ever be incinerated’.

Mrs Sharpe added: ’I strongly recommend that the Department of Health and Social Care, when drawing up future policy regarding termination services, considers what will happen when the majority of women requesting an abortion complete their early terminations at home.’

Bill Henderson, the MLC in charge of guiding the Abortion Reform Bill through Legislative Council, said he was content with the new clause, which was approved unanimously.

When the bill becomes law, abortion will be permitted upon request up to 14 weeks, under specified circumstances including ’serious social grounds’ during the 15-24-week period, and in certain emergency or serious situations after 24 weeks. Provision has also been added to create ’access zones’ around medical centres to protect women and medics from harassment.

Under the current Manx law, a termination is allowed in the island up to 24 weeks, but only where medical practitioners consider there is substantial risk the child will not survive birth, will die shortly afterwards or will be seriously handicapped.

Pregnancies resulting from rape, incest or sexual assault may be terminated up to 12 weeks, but women must provide an affidavit attesting to the cause of the pregnancy.

Terminations on social grounds are not permitted under the current law.

Campaigners say hundreds of women have been forced to either travel to England for a procedure or risk obtaining abortion pills via the internet, as a result of the current restrictive regime.

The Bill still needs final approval by the House of Keys, following amendments made in Legislative Council, before it can move forward to become law. That will not happen before the autumn, due to the summer recess.

However, the gap should allow the Department of Health and Social Care to start its preparations for when the bill does become law.