Termination of Pregnancy for Fetal Abnormality: The Perspective of a Parent Support Organisation

Abstract

Antenatal Results and Choices (ARC) celebrates its 20th anniversary as a UK registered charity in 2008. ARC's remit is to provide information and non-directive support to parents before, during and after antenatal screening. Much of its core work is supporting parents who are considering or who have already undergone a termination after a diagnosis of fetal abnormality. This paper describes ARC's history and how its work has changed over the 20 years, and looks at terminations, mostly in the second trimester, in the UK from ARC's experience as a parent support organisation. It summarises the law on when terminations for fetal abnormality can be offered and explores some of the issues that have affected the parental experience of termination after an antenatal diagnosis. It describes how standards of care have changed for the better, partly due to the training and information they provide widely, and parents' experience and perspectives on the importance of having contact with others with the same experience.