Robert Winston lends his support to families grieving miscarriages

Robert Winston is an English professor, medical doctor, scientist, television presenter and politician who was an early pioneer in developing treatments for infertility.

He has recently become an ambassador for a new charity called ‘Saying Goodbye’ which has just launched a series of remembrance services in Britain’s cathedrals for families who have had miscarriages.

These have generated huge interest and I gather that hundreds of people are attending to remember the babies they have lost.

The organisers, Zoe and Andy Clark-Coates, have over 11,000 followers on twitter and over 1,400 followers on facebook.

I was interested to see a lengthy quote from Robert Winston on the ‘Saying Goodbye’ website which acknowledges in very strong terms the humanity of the baby in the womb.

I guess this is not surprising as many mothers I know who have had a miscarriage talk about ‘losing a baby’ in the same way that pregnant mothers generally talk about ‘my baby’.

I don’t think I have ever heard a pregnant woman talking about ‘my fetus’ or ‘my embryo’ although arguably this is the more correct medical term.

In like manner I have never heard an obstetrician saying ‘your fetus’ when referring to a woman’s pregnancy in an antenatal clinic. It is always ‘your baby’.

There are about 80,000 miscarriages every year in England and Wales and few families have not been touched by this kind of loss.

As one who has personally lost both siblings and a daughter in this way I welcome and applaud Lord Winston's backing for this valuable initiative.

Here is his full quote from the ‘Saying Goodbye’ website. The emphasis is mine.

‘Miscarriage is often something that’s not acknowledged or talked about in the UK, and people certainly do not appreciate how utterly distressing it is for women, and indeed their extended families.

It’s a loss of a precious life, and whether the loss happens in early or late pregnancy it’s traumatic, and a natural grief process must be allowed to happen.

Sadly a lot of doctors and nurses see miscarriage on such a regular basis, the right support and follow up advice is just not offered, which results in the vast amount of women never coming to terms with losing their baby, and sadly they are not able to move forward with their lives as they become stuck in a cycle of grief.

I am delighted to be an ambassador for a marvellous new organisation called 'Saying Goodbye'. Following losing five babies themselves, Zoe and Andrew Clark-Coates, the directors of CCEM, decided to launch the first national set of commemorative services, which will allow families to come together to mourn their babies.

I hope that these services will be a turning point in the nation, and through this new organisation miscarriage will become more widely understood, and families will know that their pain and loss has been heard and recognized.’

One in three human deaths in England and Wales is that of a preborn baby

Last month I posted a blog titled ‘27% of all human deaths in England and Wales are due to abortion’.

It was prompted by an article on the Guardian website titled ‘Mortality statistics: every cause of death in England and Wales, visualised’ which claimed to give ‘a full listing of “all” deaths in England and Wales in 2010.

They used the graphic above left to illustrate it with the largest circles representing the 158,084 deaths from circulatory diseases, 141,446 from cancers and neoplasms and 67,276 from respiratory diseases.

I pointed out that it did not include the 189,574 induced abortions that took place in England and Wales that year and that, if one reworked the figures, these actually constituted 27% of all deaths – over one in four.

Another blogger, Mark Whalley, told me that he had earlier reworked the graphic to include abortions and posted it on his own website.

I have reproduced Mark’s revision here showing abortions (blue circles on right) as the biggest cause of death.

Mark made the point on my blog that I should also include miscarriages and another correspondent suggested that if I did so it would make my figures ‘less polemic’.

It is impossible to know the actual numbers of very early miscarriages or chemical abortions, those occurring without a lost menstrual period, and estimates vary widely based largely on guesswork. At best we could have only a very rough estimate.

In addition there are no national statistics for Britain are published on ‘miscarriages’ but a BMJ article has calculated them at 70,000-90,000 per year in England and Wales. So let’s say approximately 80,000.

If we include these 80,000 and add them to the 189,574 induced abortions and 493,242 deaths from all other causes we get to a total of just under 763,000 human deaths in England and Wales in 2010.

So of all human deaths this year induced abortions constituted roughly 24.8% and miscarriages 10.5%.

So in total 35.3% of all human deaths – over one in three - were preborn babies.

Now this is where it gets interesting.

Professor Lord Robert Winston (left) has recently given his support to a new charity running remembrance services in Britain’s cathedrals for families who have had miscarriages. He writes:

‘Miscarriage is often something that’s not acknowledged or talked about in the UK, and people certainly do not appreciate how utterly distressing it is for women, and indeed their extended families. It’s a loss of a precious life, and whether the loss happens in early or late pregnancy it’s traumatic, and a natural grief process must be allowed to happen.’

I agree with him that miscarriage is not talked about enough and that it involves the loss of a precious life.

But if the baby who miscarries is precious then doesn’t the same also follow for those babies who die as a result of abortion?

Or have I missed something?