What is abortion?

Abortion: *premature expulsion of the foetus from the womb *operation to cause this Doctors use the word abortion to mean any death of a baby in the womb and its expulsion from the mothers body. What does the law say? The Abortion Act The law in the UK says that an abortion can be performed up to the end of the 24th week of pregnancy if two doctors agree that: 1. to continue the pregnancy would involve a risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman greater than the risk involved in having an abortion. 2. that to continue the pregnancy would involve risk of injury to the physical or mental health of any existing children of the pregnant woman greater than the risks involved in her having an abortion. However, the law allows an abortion at any stage of the pregnancy: 1. if the doctors agree that continuing the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the mother. 2. if they agree that an abortion is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman. 3. if there is substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped. Key Question - When does life begin? At conception? At viability? At birth? What do YOU think? Development of the foetus: 25th day heart starts beating 28th day legs and arms begin to form 6th week bones appear 7th week fingers, thumbs forming 10th week organs nearly formed 12th week vocal chords, sexual organs form 16th week half its birth length 5th month eyebrows, eyelashes begin Premature babies born as early as 25 weeks Did you know that before 1967 abortion in Britain was illegal? In 1967 Parliament passed a law stating that it was no longer an offence for a pregnancy to be terminated by a doctor. If a woman wanted an abortion before 1967 she had to go to a backstreet abortionist. Between 40,000 and 200,000 back-street abortions took place in Britain every year. About 30 women, on average, died every year.