Left image – Wikimedia Commons: Official portrait of Nigel Farage MP
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said it is “utterly ludicrous” to allow abortion up to 24 weeks when premature babies can survive at 22 weeks or less.
Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, called abortion law in the UK “totally out of date” at a news conference on Tuesday.
“I am pro-choice, but I think it’s ludicrous, utterly ludicrous that we can allow abortion up to 24 weeks. And yet, if a child is born prematurely at 22 weeks, your local hospital will move heaven and earth and probably succeed in that child surviving and going on and living a normal life”, Farage said.
“So, I believe there is an inconsistency in the law. I believe it is totally out of date.”
Reform has risen in the polls in recent months after returning several MPs to the House of Commons, including its leader, Farage. The party also made big gains at the recent local elections in England.
During the same press conference, Farage pledged to scrap the two-child benefit cap to help people have more children.
While Farage did not explicitly state that Reform would change the law if in power, he said it would “be worthy of a debate in parliament… But should that be along party lines? I don’t think so.”
Curtis Zy-Keith Means, who was born at 21 weeks and weighed just 419.5g, is the world’s most premature baby to survive. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama on July 5, 2020.
On 6 September 2022, baby girl Imogen was born in Swansea at 22 weeks at a weight of 515g. She spent 132 days in hospital, and she is now thriving.
Earlier this year, academics at the Infant Consciousness Conference in New York concluded that recent evidence indicates that unborn consciousness might begin before 24 weeks gestation.
Bioethicist and co-organiser of the conference Claudia Passos-Ferreira said that “whatever you claim about this, there are some moral implications”.
Abortion is legal up to 24 weeks in the UK, though it is permitted up to birth in instances of disability, including prenatal diagnoses of Down’s syndrome.
Amendments to the government’s crime and policing bill are currently seeking to remove women from “criminal law related to abortion”, allowing abortion up to birth in all instances, including sex-selective abortion.
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