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Legal abortion is becoming ac–
ceptable throughout the world.
In Britain alone, one in five
pregnancies ends in voluntary
abortion. Many are asking: ls
th i s s oc ial progress o r a
license to kili? We have asked
a British medica/ doctor to an–
s wer this controvers ia/
question.
by
Gordon Muir, M.D.
A BORTION HAS
become one of
~
Britain's - and the world's
- largest "growth indus–
tries," observes the
British Medica/
Jouma/.
A decade ago crudely performed
"back-street" abortions were rife in
Britain. An estimated 100,000 or
more were performed each year.
These were mainly carried out on
women unable to obtain medica!
sanction for their terminations. IUe–
gal abortions proba bly reached
beyond the 150,000 mark. This,
mind you, was prior to the 1967
Abortion Law
in
Britain.
The old law was fairly strict. lt
allowed termination of pregnancy
only if its continuance would expose
the mother to serious risk of life or
health.
Working in a gynecology ward,
one could never be sure how many
cases admitted for treatment of
"spontaneous a bortion" had really
been self-induced with the notorious
crochet hook or the legendary slip–
pery elm bark. But even
~t
that time
a "professional" job could always be
performed for those women who
had the money and knew the right
people. Just how much of that went
on we will never know.
28
Abortion on Demand
l n 1967 Scottish member of Par–
liament Mr. David Steel saw bis
abortion bill become law. It was not
the "abortion on demand" panacea
that various groups had been aim–
ing for. It allowed doctors to end a
pregnancy when two of them agreed
that the pregnancy would involve
"risk to the Iife· or injury to the
physical or
mental hea/th
of the
pregnant mother or the future well
being of herse1f . . . or her other chil–
dren." Account could also be taken
"of the patient's
total environment,
actual or reasonably foreseeable."
In theory, this was a liberalizing
of the old law stopping short of
abortion on demand. In practice -
taking into account the prívate sec–
tor - it meant an abortion for any–
one who wanted it, though the cash
price could be heavy. What you
could not get on the National
Health Service (Britain's socialized
medica! assistance), you could al-
ways buy legally in many large Brit–
ish cities. It became an easy matter
to find two doctors who,
in
good
faith, would endorse that having the
baby would cause more stress or ill–
ness than having an abortion. One
London psychiatrist I interviewed
believed · the idea of having an un–
wanted baby was sufficiently "stress–
fui" to
warr~nt
abortion.
ln
effect then, we have abortion
on demand in Bri tain. And this is
precisely what the liberalizing cam–
paigners always intended. The
"Abortoria," or abortion factories
predicted seven years ago by Profes–
sor MeLaren of Birmingham Uni–
ver sity have a rr ived . T h ei r
production record is a staggering
success by any standards except per–
haps moral ones.
The Production Record
In 1966, two years before tbe
abortion act carne in, 6,000 legal
abortions were carried out in
England and Wales. This figure
topped the 100,000 mark in 1971,
and the latest figures available show
160,000 pregnancies terminated in
1972 - two thirds of them in prívate
clinics, and most under the "mental
health" clause. This is hardly sur–
prising considering there are an
estirnated 300,000 "unwanted preg–
nancies" in Britain every year. How–
ever, it should be pointed out that
about one third of the 1972 abor–
tions were performed on foreign
women - mostly French and Ger–
man - so there is considerable
scope for expansion of the "borne
market. " Abortions could soon
reach 250,000 annually - about one
third of the birth rate. According to
Professor MeLaren, every fifth preg-
nancy
in
England is being aborted.
The result of readily available
abortions has been predictable and
inevitable. If a girl gets into trouble,
she knows the solution is just
around the corner. Does anyone
doubt that easy abortions encourage
easy morals? Professor MeLaren has
rightly said that English women
have "taken to abortion like ducks
to water."
Another Birmingham gynecolo–
gist, Dr. Joseph Jordan, said that
"the people who introduced this act
denied they wanted abortion on de–
maod or [as) a method of con–
traeeption. But that has happened.
Many young people including stu–
dents at our own university are hav-
PLAIN TRUTH August 1974