Abortion Act 1967

Background and Overview

Sociological context

The Abortion Act 1967 provisions remain controversial almost 60 years after their enactment. At its essence, the Act seeks to address two extremely challenging and largely antithetical human rights considerations. One view is that all human life is sacred, where ‘life’ is defined as commencing with conception, and extending until death.^[23] Here, abortion means induced termination of pregnancy. The Act is not confined to termination before the foetus is capable of being born alive.^[24] For some of its opponents, abortion thus constitutes an unjustified killing of the foetus. In contrast, some abortion proponents argue that a woman’s right to control her reproductive system should be absolute.^[25] On this view, just as modern day medical ethics do not sanction forced medical treatment, the State should not dictate how, or under what circumstances women will choose to bear children.^[26]

Illegal abortions had long been a UK societal feature.^[27] Women who sought unsafe illegal abortions could die as a result.^[28] The post-WW II social climate was changing rapidly, with more women eager to pursue careers beyond conventional domestic duties and primary family childcare obligations.^[29] In other instances, where the mother had already given birth to several children, abortion represented a way to potentially improve overall family financial prospects, whilst contributing to an individual woman’s greater wellbeing.^[30]

Legal context

The pre-1967 Act UK social landscape revealed many conflicting abortion access perspectives. In England and Wales, unlawfully procuring a miscarriage was a crime;^[31] the recognised exception was where the abortion was administered in good faith to preserve the mother’s life.^[32] The seeds for the current law as discussed below are revealed in R v Bourne, decided in 1938 and reported in 1939. Macnaghten J, directing the jury at the Central Criminal Court, explained that ‘preserving the life of the mother’ extended beyond an immediate risk of death. If the doctor believed on reasonable grounds and with adequate knowledge that continuing the pregnancy would probably make the woman a physical or mental wreck, the jury could find that he acted in good faith to preserve her life.

Main changes and key Abortion Act 1967 provisions

Although the 1967 Act is framed as an exception to the criminal law relating to abortion,^[33] its main provisions seek to balance the conflicting sociological factors noted above.^[34] Act s. 1(1) provides that no offence is committed where the abortion is performed by a registered medical practitioner (a doctor), under these circumstances.^[35] Subject to the emergency exception in s. 1(4), two registered medical practitioners must have formed the good faith opinion that: (i) the pregnancy has not exceeded its twenty-fourth week and its continuance would involve a greater risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family than termination; or (ii) termination is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the woman’s physical or mental health; or (iii) continuing the pregnancy poses a greater risk to the woman’s life than termination; or (iv) there is a substantial risk that, if born, the child would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be “seriously handicapped”, in the Act’s words. The twenty-four-week limit applies only to ground (i); grounds (ii)–(iv) have no statutory gestational limit.^[36]

When assessing the risk of injury to health under s. 1(1)(a) or (b), account may be taken of the pregnant woman’s actual or reasonably foreseeable environment.^[37] The Act provisions must be strictly followed by anyone performing an authorised abortion.^[38] The Act s. 1(1) language makes termination lawful by providing an exception to the criminal offences relating to abortion.^[39] It is also important to appreciate the 1967 Act limitations. It does not apply to Northern Ireland. There, ss. 58–59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 were repealed in 2019, and the Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 provide a separate framework. They permit termination without a specified health ground where a registered medical professional considers in good faith that the pregnancy has not exceeded its twelfth week, and on specified health or foetal-impairment grounds thereafter. The woman herself is excluded from the Regulations’ offence of unlawful termination.^[40] The Act also provides this straightforward ‘law relating to abortion’ definition as meaning the above-noted Offences against the Person Act 1861 provisions, and ‘any rule of law [including the common law] relating to the procurement of abortion’.^[41]

The requirement for termination by a registered medical practitioner does not mean that the doctor must personally perform every step: qualified nurses and others may take part in treatment under the doctor’s direction (Royal College of Nursing v Department of Health and Social Security [1981] AC 800). Under s. 1(4), the two-doctor and place-of-treatment requirements do not apply where a doctor considers in good faith that termination is immediately necessary to save the woman’s life or prevent grave permanent injury to her physical or mental health.

Treatment normally takes place in an NHS hospital or an approved place: s. 1(3). Sections 1(3B)–(3D), inserted by the Health and Care Act 2022, permit prescribed abortion medicine to be self-administered at the woman’s usual home in England or Wales after a medical, nursing or midwifery consultation, including a remote consultation, where the doctor considers in good faith that the pregnancy will not exceed ten weeks when the first medicine is taken as instructed. Scotland has separate ministerial approvals for early medical abortion at home under s. 1(3A). Section 2 and regulations made under it require certification of the doctors’ opinions and notification of terminations.

Since 29 April 2026, s. 241 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 has removed criminal liability under the law related to abortion in England and Wales for a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy, at any gestation. This includes the offences under ss. 58–59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929. It does not change the Abortion Act’s medical framework, including its grounds, gestational limits, two-doctor requirement and place-of-treatment rules, or remove criminal liability for others acting outside that framework. It does not extend this reform to Scotland.

Section 242 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 comes into force on 16 November 2026. It provides pardons for women, living or deceased, convicted of or cautioned for abortion offences when acting in relation to their own pregnancies, and requires relevant data controllers, so far as reasonably practicable, to delete relevant official records of convictions, cautions, arrests and investigations. The commencement date is fixed by S.I. 2026/1090, reg. 3.

The Act also defines circumstances where a doctor or other healthcare professional person may exercise their right of conscientious objection to participating in an abortion procedure.^[42] This right is qualified by s. 4(2), where persons otherwise legitimately claiming conscientious objector status remain bound by “any duty to participate in treatment necessary to save the life or to prevent grave permanent injury” to a pregnant woman’s physical or mental health.^[43]

This right was more recently given a clear Supreme Court interpretation in Doogan v Greater Glasgow.^[44] The Court found that Act s. 4(1) conscientious objector rights pertained to persons taking part in a hands-on capacity in the course of treatment bringing about the termination, including connected medical and nursing care. Such rights do not extend to persons carrying out ancillary, administrative or managerial tasks associated with the various activities necessary to provide abortion services. The Doogan claimants (two midwives working as maternity ward coordinators) could not rely on Act s. 4(1) to object to their managerial and supervisory tasks as such. Particular tasks directly connected with a patient’s termination treatment could be covered; ordinary nursing and pastoral care after the termination was not.^[45]

Footnotes

^[23] William Binchy, ‘Human dignity and the unborn child – a comment’ (2014) 20(2) M.L.J.I. 82, 85.

^[24] Abortion Act 1967, ss. 1(1)(b)–(d), 5(1).

^[25]As discussed in Gregor Puppinck, ‘Abortion and the European Convention on Human Rights’ (2013) 3(2) I.J.L.S. 142.

^[26]Imogene Goold and Jonathan Herring, Great Debates in Medical Law and Ethics (Palgrave, 2014), 138, 140.

^[27] As confirmed by the London ‘Old Bailey’ records to 1913; see Clive Emsley, Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker, ‘Historical Background – Gender in the Proceedings’, Old Bailey Proceedings Online [Online] Available: www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.0 [17 January 2016]. See also Greater Glasgow Health Board v Doogan [2014] UKSC 68, [27].

^[28]HC Deb 17 January 1990, vol. 165, cols. 274–275W, “Illegal Abortions” (historical maternal death figures).

^[29] Sheelagh McGuinness and Michael Thomson, ‘Medicine and abortion law: complicating the reforming profession’ (2015) 23(2) Med. L. Rev. 177, 180-183.

^[30]Ibid.

^[31]Offences Against the Person Act 1861, s. 58.

^[32]R v Bourne [1939] 1 K.B. 687 (Central Criminal Court).

^[33] Preserving the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 offence, see (n 31), subject now to Crime and Policing Act 2026, s. 241 in England and Wales.

^[34] Polly Russell, ‘An archive of the women’s liberation movement: a document of social and legislative change’ (2015) 15(1) L.I.M 31, 35.

^[35]Abortion Act 1967, s.1(1).

^[36] Ibid, ss. 1(1) (a) – (d).

^[37]Ibid, s. 1(2).

^[38]Ibid, s. 5 (2).

^[39] Natalie Shaw, ‘The damage done by dichotomies’ (2008) 14 UCL Juris. Rev. 285, 291 (Paternalism versus feminism). On lawfulness under the Act, see Greater Glasgow Health Board v Doogan [2014] UKSC 68, [1], [32].

^[40]Abortion Act 1967, s. 7(3); for the former position, see Re K (a minor), Northern Health and Social Services Board v F and G (1991) 2 Med LR 371. For the current framework, see Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, s. 9, and S.I. 2020/503, regs. 3–7, 11.

^[41]Abortion Act 1967, s. 6.

^[42]Abortion Act 1967, s. 4(1).

^[43]Ibid, s. 4(2).

^[44]Doogan v Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board [2014] UKSC 68; [2015] A.C. 640 (SC).

^[45]Ibid, [33], [35], [38]–[39].

Last updated: 11 November 2026