Abortion debate

October 16, 2012, 9:55 AM GMT+0

Brits think the abortion time limit should remain the same, YouGov poll reveals

Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, proposed cutting the legal abortion time limit, (which is currently 24 weeks in the UK) to 12 weeks. While the Coalition has no plans to change the law on the abortion time limit, David Cameron has said he was in favour of a smaller decrease in the legal abortion limit.

However, nearly half of the British public disagree with the proposal, and think the abortion limit should remain the same.

  • 47% of the UK population think the legal abortion limit should remain as it is, in comparison to 33% who think it should be reduced to below 24 weeks.
  • A small proportion (4%) of the British public think the legal abortion limit should be increased to above 24 weeks.
  • 10% of the population think the legal abortion time limit should be cut to 18 weeks.
  • 8% of the population think the legal abortion limit should be cut by half to 12 weeks, as proposed by the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
  • A considerably smaller proportion of the British (4%) believe the legal abortion limit should be cut to less than 12 weeks while 6% of Brits believe abortions should be banned altogether.

See the results of the abortion poll here