Doctors on both sides of the abortion debate are in general agreement that late terminations are undesirable.

After twenty weeks of pregnancy, complications are four times more likely than in the first twelve weeks, and there is evidence that women find late abortion more traumatic physically and psychologically.

On top of that, in the 16 years since the threshold for legal abortion was cut from 28 weeks to 24, science has learnt much about how the foetus develops in the womb, and medical advances mean that it is now possible to keep premature babies alive at younger and younger gestational ages.

In addition, the foetus’s neurological development allows it to feel pain at about 22 weeks. Not long after this, a few babies are viable if born prematurely.

There has been considerable debate about the morality of allowing abortion at gestational ages at which a handful of babies survive.

The medical world largely accepts that abortions close to the legal limit are best avoided, and this is reflected in the statistics. In 2005, fewer than 900 were conducted at 23 or 24 weeks, and these were almost always for medical reasons or because the foetus was at high risk of severe disability. The number of women who choose late abortion for social reasons, or as a delayed form of contraception, is small. If there is agreement that even this figure is too high, however, there is also a strong argument that the best way of reducing it still further is not to impose fresh restrictions on late abortion, but to make early abortion easier to obtain.

It is a common misperception that British law allows abortion on demand. While most women who want an abortion can indeed get one, they must first jump through several medical and legal hoops. Since the Abortion Act 1967 it has been necessary to obtain the approval of two doctors, who must justify their decisions on medical grounds. The usual one, cited in 96 per cent of cases, is that pregnancy poses a greater risk to the woman’s mental or physical health than an abortion.

A single doctor is quite capable of assessing a woman’s suitability, and the two-doctor rule does little but waste medical time and resources. It certainly does nothing to protect women’s health. The double examination delays the procedure, when more timely abortions are less risky. It makes a decision that is always likely to be traumatic more stressful. Some women also find it humiliating to be declared at psychological risk when making a choice to end a pregancy.

If society has decided that abortion should be permitted — as the latest polling suggests it has — there is a good case to be made that the State’s priority should be to ensure it is available in the safest possible form. That increasingly means early medical abortion — the drug combination sometimes known as the “abortion pill” — which avoids surgery and has the lowest complication rate.

Early medical abortion is effective only during the first nine weeks of pregnancy. A women needs time to find out that she is pregnant, to come to terms with it, to discuss her options and then, if she chooses, to seek a termination. Easier access to abortion, at least during the early weeks of pregnancy, would allow many more women to take the best medical option.

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