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Into the hands of the medical profession : the regulation of abortion in England and Wales
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Florence : European University Institute, 1994
EUI; LAW; PhD Thesis
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SHELDON, Sally, Into the hands of the medical profession : the regulation of abortion in England and Wales, Florence : European University Institute, 1994, EUI, LAW, PhD Thesis - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/4785
Abstract
In the 1960s, women’s movements across Europe claimed the abortion issue as their own, with the key contention that the question of who controls female fertility is a political one, involving fundamental choices as to the position and role of women within society (see Dahlerup; 1986). Control of access to abortion services was seen as an attempt to exercise control over women’s sexuality and fertility and to enforce certain roles and life-style choices (reflecting particular moral assumptions). Access to safe, legal abortion on demand was advanced as a prerequisite for the full and equal participation of women in society, for as Madeleine Simms of the first British reforming group, the Abortion Law Reform Association, put it: "no true state of equality can exist for women in a society which denies them freedom and privacy in respect of fertility control" (1981; 183). The feminist claim that the regulation of abortion is intrinsically linked to attempts to control women is not so easily sustained in the Britain of today as it was in that of pre-1967. The 1967 Abortion Act provided that a pregnancy may be legally terminated by a registered medical practitioner where two doctors certify the existence of certain circumstances: either that the continuance of pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman, or of injury to her physical or mental health, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated; or that there is substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped. Since 1990, a time limit of twentyfour weeks has applied with exceptions allowing abortion after that time where termination is necessary to prevent grave, permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the woman; or continuance of a pregnancy threatens the life of the woman; or there is substantial risk that if the child is born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped. The existence of these circumstances under the Abortion Act is a matter for the judgment of medical professionals.
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Defence date: 11 November 1994
Supervisor: Gunther Teubner
First made available online: 5 August 2016
Supervisor: Gunther Teubner
First made available online: 5 August 2016