Cord blood Cord blood Cord blood (umbilical cord blood) is blood that remains in the placenta and in the attached umbilical cord after childbirth. Cord blood is collected because it contains stem cells, which can be used to treat hematopoietic and genetic disorders. Cord blood is composed of all the elements found in whole blood - red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma, platelets. Compared to whole blood some differences in the blood composition exist, for example, cord blood contains higher numbers of natural killer cells, lower absolute number of T-cells and a higher proportion of immature T-cells. However, the interest in
Abortion in the United Kingdom declaring that "the restrictive abortion laws and practices and barriers to access safe abortion are gender-discriminatory, denying women and girls treatment only they need". Finally, Northern Ireland Justice Minister David Ford issued a call for public consultation on amending the criminal law on abortion. The call for consultation took into consideration cases where "there is a diagnosis in pregnancy that the foetus has a lethal abnormality". and cases where "women have become pregnant as a result of sexual crime". Ford also wrote that "it is not a debate on the wider issues of abortion law – issues often labelled as