As a law student in 1975 I studied David Steel’s Abortion Bill of 1967, which it was claimed would provide a remedy to the rigidity of the Offences Against The Person Act 1861, according to which a doctor performing an abortion where the continuation of the pregnancy would endanger the mother’s life, faced prosecution and even a long jail sentence. Assurances were given or implied that this would mean a tiny number of cases each year in which such abortions would be carried out legitimately in order to save the mother’s life.
However, as we have seen since the Act was passed in 1968, giving permission in what were thought to be strictly controlled circumstances for a tiny number of cases of medical necessity, has resulted in a dramatic change to our society and culture. The historic recognition of unborn children as human beings, and the legal protection which was afforded to them, has given way to an interpretation of the Act (which Parliament said it did not intend in 1967) by means of which roughly one in five pregnancies now end in abortion, carried out even for reasons such as gender selection.
Almost all frail members of society depend on society in some way for their well-being and in many cases for the continuation of their lives from hour to hour and day to day. They are able to trust the institutions, agencies and above all the medical profession quite literally with their lives…