ISSUES
: Abortion
Chapter 1: Abortion facts
13
Abortion is still illegal in the UK, thanks to
this Victorian law
An article from
The Conversation
.
By Sally Sheldon, Professor of Law, Kent Law School, University of Kent
Y
ou probably know that
abortion services are available
in Britain on the National
Health Service. What you may not
know is that abortion is still potentially
punishable by life imprisonment. That
includes terminations very early in a
pregnancy.
Abortion is still a criminal offence in
the UK under the Offences Against
the Person Act 1861. It is legal only
when carried out under conditions of
strict medical control.
As things stand, a terrified teenager,
who takes abortion drugs that she has
bought over the Internet rather than
tell anyone that she is pregnant, is
committing a crime that is punishable
by life imprisonment.
The 1861 act is an archaic, badly
flawed piece of legislation, which is
ripe for reform. It includes specific
offences such as failing to feed one’s
servants properly.
The act is so widely recognised as
out of date that the Law Commission
is conducting a major review of its
content. Yet this review does not
include those sections of the act that
deal with abortion.
Victorian rules
The 1861 act is grounded in the moral
concerns and medical realities of mid-
Victorian Britain. It was the product
of an all-male parliament and was
passed almost 60 years before the
first women won the right to vote.
This was a time when the mere fact
of publishing a book on contraception
was reason enough for a woman to
be deemed morally unsuitable as a
mother and to have her child removed
from her care.
The effects of this harsh, punitive
statute have been mitigated by
legislation introduced in 1967, which
permits abortions under medical
control, but this second law is out of
date too. It imposes a rangeof clinically
unjustifiable restrictions on women
seeking an abortion – most notably by
requiring two doctors, rather than the
pregnant woman herself, to decide
if an abortion is justified. It also fails
to offer any protection to the terrified
teenager described above.
It is true that women are seldom
charged for getting an abortion –
but the fact that an archaic law is
not enforced is not justification for
retaining it.
Time for change
It is high time abortion was
decriminalised in the UK. That
would not leave abortion services
unregulated.
Non-consensual,
dangerous or negligent practice
would be caught by the same mass
of criminal, civil, administrative and
disciplinary provisions that regulate
other areas of medical practice.
But it wouldmean recognising that the
threat of prison is no fit response to the
pregnant teenager above or, indeed,
to any woman who feels unable to
access formal healthcare services.
Neither are these provisions the best
way of policing the boundaries of
acceptable medical practice.
Sweeping away criminal prohibitions
on abortion would also begin to
address the stigma associated with
a procedure sought by one in three
British women at some point in their
lives, and the health professionals that
care for them.
It would offer the chance to remove
clinically
unnecessary
barriers
to the provision of high-quality,
compassionate services. It would
address the curious legal anomaly
that requires doctors in all contexts
save for this one, to recognise that
patients are adults, capable of
“accepting responsibility for the taking
of risks affecting their own lives, and
living with the consequences of their
choices”.
Removing
criminal
prohibitions
on abortion would undoubtedly
be fiercely opposed by those who
believe that the embryo or foetus is
a full moral person, of equal worth to
the woman who carries it. But very
few modern Britons (including those
who identify as Christian) appear to
take this extreme view. And while the
moral beliefs of the minority should be
respected in making decisions about
their own healthcare, they should not
dictate the shape of services for the
majority.
Today,92%ofabortionsareperformed
in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Most British people believe that, at
least in these very early stages, it is
up to the woman to decide whether
or not to continue a pregnancy. Most
also believe that the Government has
no business interfering with that right.
For many of us, this is not because
we believe that the growing, human
foetus has no moral significance. It
is because we trust women to make
morally significant decisions. And
we understand that women cannot
participate equally in society unless
we have the fundamental right to
control our own fertility.
The onus should be on thosewhowish
to retain the threat of a prison sentence
to explain why criminal sanction offers
a useful and appropriate part of a
modern response to addressing the
problem of unwanted pregnancy.
It is almost 100 years since the
British Parliament recognised that
women should have the right to vote.
Now it should recognise that they
should equally have the right to make
fundamental decisions about their
own fertility.
6 October 2015
Ö
The above information is reprinted
with kind permission from
The
Conversation
. Please visit www.
theconversation.com for further
information.
© 2010–2016, The Conversation
Trust (UK)
