Mr. Peter Thompson:

That is relatively easy because it is a common scenario. That is one of the other reasons that gestational age limits are difficult. If there is a 24-week gestational age limit and the woman has an ultrasound scan at 20 weeks and two days, a week later she gets a second opinion in her local hospital and the following week she is seen by us for the first time, the gestational age is nearly 23 weeks already. If the limit is in one week we are going to say to the woman, "Now you must make up your mind and you have a couple of days in which to do it. If you do not make up your mind in that couple of days you are continuing with the pregnancy". It is much easier to say that there is time for the woman to come to the right decision. What people cannot do is flip between one decision and the other, and occasionally people do that. They say they do not want to have a termination but then follow up and say they want one. They come back and we discuss it and then they say they do not want it. It is difficult to make generalisations but often with people who are constantly changing their minds one ends up in the do no harm scenario and, by default, women may well carry on with the pregnancy. Where they keep changing their minds one does not want to do something that is irreversible.