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MP Dorries challenged over abortion
Doctor questions use of picture on her website.
Nadine Dorries MP and a prominent doctor are at odds over the use of a controversial picture on her website.
The Mid Bedfordshire Conservative has used an image which shows unborn Samuel Armas at 21 weeks' gestation, apparently reaching out to grasp the finger of a surgeon operating on him while still inside the womb.
She is claiming its use is "correct beyond reasonable doubt".
But the doctor who performed the surgery, Dr Joseph Bruner, formerly of the Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, USA, where the operation took place, has long refuted claims that the foetus clung onto his finger.
Dr Bruner said: "It has become an urban legend.
"The baby did not reach out. Samuel and his mother, Julie, were under anaesthesia and could not move. The baby was not aware of what was going on."
However, Mrs Dorries remains certain it was correct to use the picture to gain support for her campaign to see the upper limit at which abortion takes place, reduced from 24 to 20 weeks.
She said: "Before putting this photo up I spoke to numerous obstetricians and gynaecologists from University College Hospital, as well as US senators who used the picture as evidence in an enquiry to ban partial birth abortions.
"I'm not saying that it is 100 per cent certain the photo is genuine, as doctors can always be wrong. But what I've put on my website is correct beyond reasonable doubt."
The picture has been used all over the world by anti-abortion campaigners since it was taken in 1999.
But Dr Bruner's claims that the baby was anaesthetised and therefore unable to feel pain have presented Mrs Dorries with another line of argument she finds hard to believe.
She said: "The same people using the argument that Samuel was under anaesthetic so could not feel a thing are the same people who also say that abortion up to 24 weeks is acceptable because a foetus at that point cannot feel pain.
"They use whatever argument suits them at the time."
While Mrs Dorris is a campaigner for the upper abortion limit to be reduced, she still considers herself to be pro-abortion.
She said: "I'm not anti-abortion, I'm not pro-life, and I'm not looking at this from a religious standpoint. I'm in favour of abortions, in favour of making them as easy and accessible as possible, as long as they are early and not being used as a form of contraception.
"That is what I am campaigning for."
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Weather for Bedford
Friday 25 May 2012
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Temperature: 11 C to 24 C
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