Background and Overview
Sociological context
The Abortion Act 1967 provisions remain controversial almost 50 years after their enactment. At its essence, the Act seeks to address two extremely challenging and largely antithetical human rights considerations. The first is that all human life is sacred, where ‘life’ is defined as commencing with conception, and extending until death.[23] By definition, abortion is any spontaneous or induced pregnancy termination prior to the foetus reaching a viable age (where it can live outside the mother’s womb).[24] For its opponents, abortion thus constitutes an unlawful killing of the foetus. In contrast, abortion proponents argue that a woman’s right to control her reproductive system is absolute.[25] Just as modern day medical ethics do not sanction forced medical treatment, the State may not dictate how, or under what circumstances women will choose to bear children.[26]
Illegal abortions had long been a UK societal feature.[27] Unmarried women who became pregnant either through accident, or by rape often died at the hands of amateur abortionists.[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. Abortion was a crime;[31] the sole permitted defence was where the abortion was administered to preserve the mother’s life.[32] The seeds for the current law as discussed below are revealed in the 1939 R v Bourne reasons. The Court of Appeal determined that the phrase ‘preserving the life of the mother’ must be reasonably construed, in that such circumstances could extend beyond the mother’s risk of death, to include cases where the continued pregnancy would likely cause significant physical or mental health damage.
Main changes and key Abortion Act 1967 provisions
Whilst abortion remains a criminal offence under 1967 Act auspices,[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 (most often a licensed doctor), under these circumstances.[35] The pregnancy must be terminated by a registered medical practitioner, if two registered medical practitioners have formed the good faith opinion that: (i) the pregnancy has not exceeded its twenty-fourth week (second trimester), where its continuance would involve greater likely risk to the mother than if it were terminated; or (ii) abortion will necessarily prevent the woman’s grave permanent physical or mental health injury; or (iii), pregnancy continuation poses risks exceeding those on termination; or (iv), a substantial risk exists the child will be born with seriously debilitating physical or mental abnormalities.[36]
Act s. 1(1) conditions are further qualified by the permitted ‘proper account’ 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]It is noted the Act s. 1(1) language defines abortion as an exception to the criminal offence rule, as opposed to expressly endorsing such pregnancy termination procedures as lawful.[39] It is also important to appreciate the 1967 Act limitations. It does not apply to Northern Ireland, where all abortion (unless falling with the Bourne exception described above) remains a criminal offence.[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 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’ only pertained to persons actually taking part in the medical procedure. Such rights do not extend to person 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) language to conscientiously object to their roles, ones that involved supervising and supporting staff providing care to abortion patients.[45]
2026 update
The Abortion Act 1967 continues to govern lawful abortion in England, Wales and Scotland, with the general time limit for most abortions remaining 24 weeks of pregnancy following amendments introduced by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. However, abortion law has recently become the subject of renewed political debate. In June 2025, the House of Commons voted in favour of an amendment intended to decriminalise abortion in relation to a woman’s own pregnancy, amid concerns that women were still being investigated or prosecuted under Victorian-era criminal legislation such as the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.
The proposed reform focuses primarily on removing criminal liability for women who end their own pregnancies and does not alter the existing medical framework of the Abortion Act, including the 24-week time limit and the requirement for approval by two doctors in most cases. The Abortion Act therefore remains the central statutory framework for abortion in Great Britain, although debate about further reform continues.
Footnotes
[23] William Binchey, ‘Human dignity and the unborn child – a comment’ (2014) 20(2) M.L.J.I. 82, 85.
[24] Ibid.
[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 1914; 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].</www.oldbaileyonline.org,>
[28]Ibid.
[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 (CA (Crim)).
[33] Preserving the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 offence, see (n 31).
[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] A point taken from Natalie Shaw, ‘The damage done by dichotomies’ (2008) 14 UCL Juris. Rev. 285, 291 (Paternalism versus feminism).
[40]Abortion Act 1967, s. 7(3); see Re K (a minor), Northern Health and Social Services Board v F and G (1991) 2 Med LR 371.
[41]Ibid, 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].
