New foetus test adds fuel to abortion row

Press, 9 August 1976, Page 1

New foetus test adds fuel to abortion row

Is it kinder to abort a foetus of 15 weeks than to ask the mother to bring up a mongol, or to give birth to a child that may not live beyond a few years?

Is it kinder to abort a foetus at 15 weeks or to put the mother through another 25 weeks of “unnecessary” pregnancy because homonal tests have already shown the child will not survive a day past birth ?

These are some of the ethical questions that exercise the consciences of Professor J. Landon and other hormonal phvsiologists. Thev are now able to detect, among other things, mongol and spina bifida foetuses at 15 weeks. Their findings give British mothers the choice of aborting or committing themselves to bringing up defective children.

Professor Landon is professor of chemical pathology’ at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London University. He is in Christchurch to address a conference of the New Zealand Association of Clinical Biochemists.

He said yesterday that Britain now had a policy giving mothers the right to decide, after discussions, to terminate pregnancy of a spina bifida baby. Hormonal physiologists were working towards surveying all pregnant women to detect such abnormalities. He denied that there was any link between abortion

and euthanasia: disrespect for life began when the child was killed at birth, not at the pre-kicking stage before 15 weeks, he said. Once killing began at birth it would be a series of slow steps to mercy killing and euthanasia. However, there was no move towards euthanasia in Britain now. nor was there likely to be. Abortion in Britain was now basically on demand. No obstetrician had to perform the operation, but doctors strongly opposed to abortion comprised onlv a few per cent of the medical profession As manv doctors held the opposite view; thev held that Britain’s population was a’readv too high. In the middle was the popular view that an unwanted child was an unfortunate addition to the human race.

It was impossible to say if the rate of abortions had increased since abortion became legal in Britain, Professor Landon said. Women who formerly went to back-street abortionists could make figures look inflated.

However, abortion on demand in Britain had helped the country reach its present zero population growth rate. There was no lower age limit on the prescription of contraceptives; they were freely available to the married and unmarried.

Several years ago a general practitioner in Britain was prosecuted because he told the parents of a young teen-age patient that she had asked him for contraceptive advice.

There was no scientific evidence that free availability of contraceptives induced promiscuity. No doubt vast amounts of statistical evidence could be collated by protagonists on both sides. Professor Landon said that he was in favour of freely-available contraceptives provided they prevented the births of unwanted children, and eliminated the operations of back-street abortionists. The issue was less important in New Zealand, with its 3M people, than it was in Britain, for with 50M people there the extremes of ignorance were greater. Of the side-effects of the pill, Professor Landon said that the recent trend towards ora) contraceptives low in oestrogen was a good one, causing a marked decrease in hormonal sideeffects.

However, the risks of hormonal side-effects from oral contraceptives were generally many times less than the direct risks to the mother in pregnancy. Hormonal tests could now detect a pregnancyrelated cancer before it became symptomatic.