Doctors 'misused figures to back abortions'

By Gordon Rayner

Doctors may have misled the Government in order to keep the 24-week abortion limit, it has been claimed. Your View: Should the 24-week abortion limit be lowered? The Tory MP Nadine Dorries said yesterday that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) had submitted evidence to ministers showing the survival rate at 23 weeks was just 10-15 per cent, when some hospitals recorded survival rates of 40 per cent at 23 weeks and 66 per cent at 24 weeks. Mrs Dorries also criticised the British Medical Association (BMA) for "working it" so that only pro-abortion motions were discussed at its annual conference. Her allegations came before Dawn Primarolo, the minister for public health, appeared before a parliamentary science and technology committee inquiry into abortion. Miss Primarolo told the committee that the Government did not believe there was enough evidence to reduce the upper abortion limit, citing the low survival rate. But Mrs Dorries challenged her, saying there were units where the rates were much higher. She asked: "Do you still feel 24 weeks is the right limit?" Miss Primarolo said: "The [scientific] consensus is still clear with regard to survival rates under 24 weeks. There are improvements in care but the advice is still the same in terms of survival rates." The minister said the Department of Health had been given evidence by a range of organisations, including the RCOG and the BMA. On her internet blog, Mrs Dorries claimed the RCOG had quoted an average UK figure, omitting figures showing that at "good neonatal units" a high proportion of 23-week babies would live. An RCOG spokesman strongly denied misleading the committee. He said: "What we have provided is scientific evidence, which the committee will look at. [Mrs Dorries], on the other hand, has just provided her own opinion." Mrs Dorries argued that Hope Hospital in Salford and University College Hospital in London had survival rates of 42 per cent at 22 weeks and 66 per cent at 24 weeks. However, a consultant at the UCH neonatal unit later told The Daily Telegraph that the figures did not apply to all births at the hospital — only those admitted to intensive care. The number of extremely early babies was very small, making percentages very unreliable. The inquiry paves the way for the Human Tissues and Embryos Act, expected next month, at which both sides of the abortion debate will attempt to amend the 1967 Abortion Act.