Mr. Peter Thompson:

Foeticide is performed when one is terminating a pregnancy after 22 weeks of gestation. We tend to do this under ultrasound control and gain access to the foetal circulation, sometimes through the heart. It is important that one then paralyses the foetus by administering a drug much as one would with a general anaesthetic, followed by an injection of either a local anaesthetic or potassium, which stops the heart. Once the foetus is born it becomes a baby and it is important to realise that whereas the foetus has no rights in the United Kingdom, the second it is born it acquires full rights. In the UK, then, one might end up with the scenario in which a woman undergoes a termination of pregnancy without the performing of foeticide only for the baby to be resuscitated afterwards. One would then have turned a scenario involving a foetus with an abnormality into one involving a premature baby with an abnormality, thus making the whole situation worse. Foeticide is not something that people like myself enjoy because we did, after all, go into our profession in order to try to save lives. On rare occasions, however, I think it is necessary.