HL Deb 28 June 1979 vol 400 cc1691-2WA
The Marquess of LOTHIAN

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether they are aware of the report (in the Sunday People of 4th March 1979) of the situation at Wanstead Hospital where an aborted foetus was seen to move and cry before it died; and whether they can state:

  1. (a) If this was in fact the case;
  2. (b) if so whether it contravenes the provisions of the Infant Life Preservation Act 1929 which provides that it is an offence for a baby to be destroyed having been capable of being born alive;
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  3. (c) how many instances there have been of foetuses which can move and cry, dying in circumstances which cannot be reported or seen by the general public.

Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE

The Department of Health and Social Security sought a report on the incident reported in thePeople of 25th March 1979 from the Redbridge and Waltham Forest Area Health Authority in March. In the absence of specific details, the Authority was unable to identify with certainty the cases concerned, but assumed on the basis of the information available that the newspaper report referred to a patient treated in the autumn of 1978. The period of pregnancy at the time of abortion in the case was 19 weeks, with a margin of error of not more than one week. The Authority stated that it was not known whether the foetus emitted a cry, but that the consultant's view was that its lungs were not capable of expansion at that stage. In circumstances such as these, where a foetus is not capable of sustaining independent life, the question of a contravention of the Infant Life Preservation Act does not rise.

I am not aware of any instances, apart from alleged cases which have been reported in the Press and have become the subject of investigation, of foetuses being delivered which were capable of independent life and which died because of lack of proper care. It is the policy of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services to see that, where it appears to him that an offence may have been committed in any such instance, the facts are drawn to the attention of the Director of Public Prosecutions.