Proposals to amend the abortion law to stop women having late terminations were overwhelmingly rejected yesterday by doctors.
After a passionate debate, the British Medical Association voted by three to one to maintain the present limits, restricting abortions to the first 24 weeks of pregnancy except in extreme circumstances.
Advances in medical technology have made it possible for some babies to survive when born at 22 or 23 weeks, prompting the discussion at the BMA's annual conference.
The association wanted to assess whether doctors still considered it ethically acceptable to abort a foetus above an age at which it might survive.
After hearing evidence that few severely premature babies survive without permanent disability, the conference in Manchester decided that no medical reason yet existed to change the law.
The conference was told that many women had a late termination because primary care trusts failed to provide facilities for a prompt abortion at an earlier stage in the pregnancy. Obliging them to go through with having the child would cause unnecessary distress.
A motion that "the upper limit for legal abortion should be reduced in light of new evidence of foetal developments and advances in neonatal care" was opposed by 77% of the conference.
Proposing the motion, John McQueen, an obstetrician from Bromley, south London, said the 1967 Abortion Act had set the time limit at 28 weeks because babies born earlier died.
It had been reduced to 24 weeks in 1990 after ventilation improved premature babies' chances of survival. The use of steroids in premature labour had also helped enormously.
A small number of babies were now surviving as young as 23 weeks, although often with a high level of disability.
Tony Cole, a Worcester paediatrician, said: "The public have been amazed by, charmed by, the startling new images of intra-uterine life that have been made possible by ultrasound scans which show the unborn exhibiting many of the characteristics of the born child.
He said doctors should not allow a gap to grow between the profession and a public view that foetuses under 24 weeks showed signs of humanity.
But Jan Wise, a doctor from Marlborough, Wiltshire, said the problem of late abortions was mainly the result of poor abortion services. He said 25% of primary care trusts "have not even bothered to set targets for waiting times. Where they have, 11% have waits of five to eight weeks. This is disgusting."
He appealed to the BMA not to remove "the last desperate step" from women who had no other choice. "We should be debating the shameful delays and how to make a termination easier to obtain, not harder."
Wendy Savage, a retired consultant obstetrician, said images of babies in the womb were emotive, but should not cloud judgment. "There is no scientific evidence of a foetus developing more rapidly now than it has for a millennium or two," she said. No babies born at 21 weeks were able to survive and the few born at 22 weeks were disabled.
Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA's head of science and ethics, described the result of the vote as "compassion win ning out". Anne Weyman, chief executive of the FPA, formerly the Family Planning Association, welcomed the vote: "Women faced with the decision to have a late abortion do not make this decision lightly and do so under extremely difficult circumstances. Abortion services in the UK are not seen as a priority and many women face problems even trying to obtain an early termination."
A BMA paper to inform the debate said about 190,000 abortions were performed in England and Wales in 2003, with 0.75% carried out at 22 weeks or over. About 87% were carried out at less than 13 weeks gestation, and 58% were under 10 weeks.
· Lord Steel, the author of the 1967 act which first legalised abortion in the UK, said it was time for MPs to take a fresh look at the legislation and consider making it easier for women to obtain terminations early in a pregnancy.
The Liberal Democrat peer told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme: "We are talking about an act which is now nearly 40 years old, and the fact is that the laws in the rest of Europe have overtaken us."
