Contribution
My Lords, I also speak in the gap, and I apologise for not having been able to put my name down earlier.
I most warmly congratulate my friend—we have worked together for about 30 years—the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, on her powerful, evocative and sensitive presentation of her Bill. I quickly declare my interest as a mother of a consultant gynaecologist, so I am all too aware that a gynaecologist is constantly dealing with the most difficult situations of women having babies they really cannot bring up. Therefore, they look for a termination. Other women are in the most acute heartbreak because they are desperate to have a baby that they do not seem able to produce. So I was struck by the right reverend Prelate’s—he is my Bishop—earlier experience south London, where I also used to work. This is extraordinarily difficult.
I was also the Secretary of State who handled the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. This was such complex and emotional legislation in 1990. It marked the time limit of 24 weeks at the time for the Abortion Act and when it was thought by consensus that a foetus was viable. I am extremely concerned about opening up that debate again. While I certainly support a Second Reading, I feel that in Committee there needs to be careful scrutiny about how the Bill would lie alongside our present arrangements concerning termination.
That was a very important Act. It opened the door to the extraordinary number of IVF babies. They are now saying: every classroom has an IVF baby. Some one in 31 babies is now IVF, which is remarkable. Those babies are desperately wanted, so those involved in a stillbirth have all the greater agony.
I was also involved with the Rosie Barnes Bill, which became the Still-Birth (Definition) Act, although a junior Minister handled it, where Lord Kilmarnock spoke very powerfully in this House.
My particular debt is to a former colleague of this House, Baroness Cumberlege, who did so much on maternal health, infant well-being and infant viability. She was a supporter of midwives and nurses, and her lasting impact on the improvement of services is absolutely one I recognise.
To look at this debate, we have to look at the context. As women we are very aware that generations ago, we would have lost any number of children in childbirth. We would have lost our own lives in childbirth; so many would have experienced the loss of a child. Now the situation is very different. A hundred years ago, for every 10,000 births, there were 800 deaths: now, for every 10,000 births, only 40 deaths. So, the loss of an infant by stillbirth is ever more unusual and all the more painful.
The other thing we see is the changing age at which women are having babies. Whereas many women used to have their babies in their late teens and 20s, now 31% are over 40 when having their children. Therefore, a lot of complications and comorbidities, like diabetes, are more likely to be present. I am certainly one of those who says to young women: get on with it while you can, while you are young and healthy. But many do not have that opportunity. Something like 11% of IVF births are for people between 40 and 45—a remarkable achievement.
I applaud the noble Baroness. I applaud the efforts that have gone in by others, such as, in the last Government, Tim Loughton, the MP for East Worthing and Shoreham— next door to my husband. I want to ask the Minister what she is going to do about implementing the criteria for coroners to become involved. This is really important. This was Part 2 of the Bill.
I must finish quickly—I did not know the rules—by saying I support the Bill, but it needs careful scrutiny before it becomes legislation.