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Visiting the page expecting to be able to easily reference the state of the law in each part of the UK (and it would be helpful, as I've added, to include the Channel Islands) I found that the section on "England and Wales" gave details only about the 1861 Act which no longer applies in *any* part of the Common Travel Area, and that I could not readily find out the dates or names of the legislation that applied to Scotland, England, and Wales - nor was there any reference to the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, and the history of abortion in Northern Ireland was away down at the foot of the page. (If there is an article specifically on abortion in Jersey, Guernsey, and Man, then I apologise for putting this in the wrong place and suggest a link to the article from the top level section: but as I noted in this section, women from the islands habitually traveled to the mainland when they needed an abortion, this is a documented fact: therefore the legality of abortion on the islands is as closely linked to the legislation in the mainland UK as the legality of abortion in Northern Ireland.)
I've restructured the page so that the initial visitor can quickly find out (a) the state of the law in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Island and the Channel Islands, and (b) the dates of the relevant legislation.
I appreciate that many people are keen to know about opinion polls, attempts to amend legislation, history of punishments for abortion, etc. But the basic facts of the law and dates of the legislation passed are key, and should be readily available, uncluttered by the wealth of information further down the page. Yonmei ( talk) 15:37, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
(1) As far as I can see, sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 are still in force in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. The 1999 edition of Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice, which I have in front of me right now, says, at paragraphs 19-149 to 19-165, that they are still in force. The Government's official database of legislation makes no suggestion that either section has been repealed: see here http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/section/58 and here http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/section/59 (the website in question is provided by the National Archives). If you think that they have been repealed so recently that the change has not yet appeared on the "legislation.gov.uk" website you must provide the name of the Act of Parliament that you think did this.
The Abortion Act 1967 did not repeal sections 58 or 59. All it did was to provide that the word "unlawfully" in those sections was to be construed in accordance with its first section. If an abortion was performed that was not in accordance with section 1 of the Abortion Act 1967, the person who performed it would be liable to be prosecuted for an offence under section 58 provided that he had the mens rea for that offence.
(2) The Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 does not extend to Northern Ireland. The offence of child destruction is created for Northern Ireland by the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1945.
James500 ( talk) 17:26, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
In response to your observations here and on my talk page:
(1) The 1861 and 1929 Acts are not "historical" or "irrelevant" because they have not been repealed and people can still be prosecuted under them. (In England and Wales, unlike Scotland, an Act of Parliament does not cease to be law merely because it has fallen into desuetude).
(2) The frequency with which prosecutions occur does not determine notability. That is determined by whether anyone is bothered to publish anything on the subject. I have already pointed to the leading textbook on English criminal law. I do not doubt that it will be included in many others.
(3) The fact that prosecutions do not often take place for an offence does not mean that it is not important. It might mean that it has the public running scared. To put it another way, it might mean that the offence is working.
(4) It is impossible to understand what the 1967 Act does without reference to the 1861 Act, because the 1967 Act is primarily a corrollory to the 1861 Act.
(5) The logical way to set out the article is to discuss all laws that are still in force in turn, in one section, including the 1861 Act. That is how Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice deals with the topic (it actually puts the 1861 Act first, but it, of course, is only concerned with England and Wales).
(6) I do not think that what you have written in the section on Great Britain is satisfactory because it is incomplete. It is not even a summary of what the 1967 Act does. It is a random fact. My provisional proposed revision of the section for England, Wales and Scotland is
here. It is a substantial re-draft of what I originally wrote. Please let me know whether you find it acceptable.
(7) It might be desirable to completely decouple the information on the law relating to abortion from the rest of the article, perhaps by creating a new article at Abortion law in the United Kingdom or the like. I think that there is probably enough material to justify an article, if I was to add that material (there are quite a number of cases on sections 58 and 59 alone). This would probably be my preferred option. James500 ( talk) 01:31, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
I was told above that I would have a reponse on the proposed redraft in 48 hours. It has now been over three and a half days. I can't assume that I am going to get an answer, I can't wait forever, so I am going to go ahead. In any event, I think the arguments that have been offered above are manifest nonsense. The material obviously should go in the encyclopedia somewhere, this is as good a place as any, and it can always be moved later if it appears expedient to do so. James500 ( talk) 01:43, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
(3) The Channel Islands are not part of the United Kingdom. They are what remains of the Duchy of Normandy. They are part of the British Islands. See the Interpretation Act 1978. James500 ( talk) 18:47, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
"2006 MORI poll A more recent survey shows support for restricting abortion laws in the UK, and is cited by the Catholic Church in England and Wales as evidence of a growing unease with abortion. [10]"
I've got a concern with the analysis presented by this sentence. It say that there is support for restricting abortion laws in the UK but I read the exact opposite.
"42% of British men and women believe the legal limit for an abortion should be cut (i.e abortion more restricted). 47% of British women believe the legal limit for an abortion should be cut 36% of British men believe the legal limit for an abortion should be cut 10% of British women believe that abortion should be "outlawed altogether" "
So a slim majority of men and women do NOT believe the abortion limit should be cut against the 47% who do. Compare these findings to the earlier poll:
"2005 YouGov/Daily Telegraph poll-- Hauskalainen ( talk) 05:50, 14 January 2010 (UTC) According to an August 2005 YouGov/Daily Telegraph survey, Britons' feelings toward abortion by gestational age are: [9]
30% would back a measure to reduce the legal limit for abortion to 20 weeks 25% support maintaining the current limit of 24 weeks 19% support a limit of 12 weeks 9% support a limit of fewer than 12 weeks 6% responded that abortion should never be allowed 2% said it should be permitted throughout pregnancy "
Adding up the restrictive groups, we come to a total of 66% in favour of some sort of restriction.
Contrary to "growing unease" there seems to be a relaxing of attitudes from 66% in favour of restriction in 2005 to 47% in 2006. All this tells me is that it depends how you ask the question...Anyway, I thought it was misleading to characterise the UK attitude as one of "growing unease" Tominatrix ( talk) 19:15, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
I did a few minor edits to this very infomative article. Would it be possible to clarify whether the Irish women travelling to GB for abortions are from Northern Ireland, the Republic or both? ~jimfbleak
There is circumstantial evidence to suggest that a large proportion of those 'Irish' women in Britain for abortions aren't Irish at all. Doctors in one Liverpool clinic in 1997 observed that less than 25% of those 'Irish' women actually had Irish accents; most had Liverpool accents, some Scottish, etc. There are still many British women who are unwilling to give a lot of personal details when checking into a hospital for a termination. They suspected that in saying 'I'm Irish' the women in question presumed that that would mean the hospital would decide that it would be tactful not to ask for any detailed info (home addresses, doctor contact numbers etc), on the basis that Irish women travelling for an abortion that was illegal in their own country would be unwilling to give the details and would be embarrassed to be asked. So the claims of Irishness by vast numbers of people seeking abortions are regarded by all but hardcore pro-abortion campaigners are deeply dodgy.
In addition, a travel survey in 1999 found that far less women of childbearing age travelled to specific locations in the UK than the supposed number of people showing up in those clinics for abortions and claiming Irishness. The survey on the demography of travel by age and gender suggested a serious discrepancy in the numbers. As many of these women were according to the survey not flying over with public airlines, and not travelling by boat from Dublin, Dun Laoghaire, Hollyhead or any port in Northern Ireland, the mystery was, how exactly were these 'Irish women' getting to the UK? Unless there is some secret unheard of secret boat or plane service, they were hiring private planes to fly them over or they are travelling to Europe and then to the UK, or they are swimming the Irish Sea, the numbers simply do not tally.
In one week in June 1999, a review of the number of women of 15-50 travelling to airports, sea ports and other locations within a fifty mile radius of a particular British city suggested that 144% of Irish women who travelled to that geographic area had abortions!!! Details of the exact numbers, or even a reasonable guess of the numbers of Irish women having British abortions, don't exist but put together, information from the hospitals, their data, the observations of staff and the result of the demographic survey of travel all suggest the speculated numbers are pie in the sky and privately off the record many leading abortion campaigners in Ireland admit that. FearÉIREANN 01:42 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I just had to point out that the above is complete and utter nonsense. From wiki "Estimates to the number of Irish women seeking abortions in Britain vary, in the 1990s it is alleged that between 1,500 and 10,000 women who stated in hospital records that they were 'Irish' travel annually. The official figure is 45,000 since 1967."
According to the UK Office of National Statistics, 20.4 million people visited Britain in 2006. I also found the following statistics- "Foreign visitors to the UK: American - 13%, French - 12%, German - 11%, Irish - 9.5%, Dutch - 6%". So, almost 2 million Irish people came to the UK in 2006. Admittedly some were probably in transit through UK airports, but I really don't believe that there were so few women of child-bearing age in Britain that 10,000 of them couldn't have been here for abortions. If only 10% of Irish visitors were women of child-bearing age, there would have been 200,000 of them in the UK last year. Maybe Ireland has some strange shortage of child-bearing women, or only men visited the UK. Seanjw 16:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I removed a reference to the sad case of Savita Halappanavar from the Northern Ireland section. While it's an important and newsworthy occasion, she died because doctors in the Republic felt bound by laws of the Republic - I don't see how someone dying in a neigbouring country has any relevance to Northern Ireland, where the law is completely different (with the 1929 and 1945 acts unequivocally legalising abortion in NI in cases like Halappanavar's. Johnb78 ( talk) 11:43, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Would a link to the 2004 film, Vera Drake, about a back-street abortionist, be a helpful illustration of the situation in England before the '67 Act? === Vernon White (talk) 08:33, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
(Undent) Understandable. It's just that, in a number of past discussions at Talk:Abortion, concerns have been raised over information regarding the practice of abortion before legalization (particularly in the U.S.). So as a preventative measure against similar objections being raised here it might be a good idea to add a source if you're going to introduce a reference to the film in the context of an example of the practice of abortion in the U.K. prior to 1967. Here's some stuff I found on Google about Vera Drake:
I realize that "Popular culture" and "Trivia" are not the best examples of potential titles, but I've seen a "Trivia" section in at least one abortion-related article before ( David Gunn (doctor)), and also introduced a "...in popular culture" section to Abortion-related violence. I gather it's somewhat customary to round up all the film, documentary, literature, music, etc. references that might not fit elsewhere in an article into a collective section (for example, see the "Media" section at World War II). As for other candidates for inclusion in such a "Media" section in this article, I'm Canadian, so I'm not as informed as editors in the U.K. might be. However, I do recall reading that Channel 4 aired a documentary called My Foetus (see the BBC News article, " Review: Abortion documentary is hard-hitting"). - Severa ( !!!) 10:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I made a few legal edits (sorry! but I am a Criminal Lawyer so cant help it!) Was interested to see the comment under Northern Ireland that there had been 60 prosecutions between 1925 and 1973, I would be interested to see a source for this as I cannot find any from my own research in Northern Ireland. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eodon ( talk • contribs) 22:14, August 24, 2007 (UTC)
When the film was released there was criticism from expert sources that it underplayed the risks of the abortion methods used by Vera Drake. The film implied that she had been using her method (syringing the uterus with soapy water) for many years without problems, until one exceptional bad result caught her out. According to the experts, her method was much more dangerous than thid implied, with a serious risk of infection or even fatal embolisms. I don't know if this is true, but it wouldn't surprise me. 86.135.4.134 ( talk) 12:11, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
The sentence "These provisions remain the law but they have not deterred abortions" seems utterly unlikely and meaningless. I'd call it impossible. JohnHarris ( talk) 07:32, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
The Angus Reid Poll which I deleted is from a web site which pays people to respond to polls. These people have chosen to be part of the panel. They are therefore a self-selected group. Tho polling organizations try to balance their sample, there is no getting away from the fact that this polling method is NOT random, which is the gold standard for opinion polling. Self selected groups are not valid polling samples. Also the results of the poll are at odds with all the other polls. The ip editor who reinstated this poll to the article claims that this organization is a member of the British Polling Council. I checked yesterday and the company was not listed. If I made a mistake I will apologize but it is up to you to prove this.-- Hauskalainen ( talk) 19:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
I have cut the words in italics from the following passage. There is no source and they appear to be at odds with the appearance of the word "unlawfully" in section 58. James500 ( talk) 21:44, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
That section was replaced by section 58 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which made abortion or attempts to "procure a miscarriage" illegal under all and any circumstances, which provides:
I have cut the words "UK abortion law is based on several Acts of Parliament" from the lead. I am not convinced that one can properly speak of "UK abortion law" when England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each have different laws in relation to abortion. I am also under the impression that in Scotland, the law relating to abortion subsists at common law (subject to modification by the 1967 Act), and cannot therefore be said to be "based" on an Act of Parliament. James500 ( talk) 00:05, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
In light of this edit, could someone who has access to the full text of the BMJ paper check that the passage in question, which was added by another anonymous editor is accurate. James500 ( talk) 06:09, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Hey, Why is this story a subsection of the Northern Ireland part? It happened in the Republic. Moreover, what is it doing in an article on abortion in the UK? ~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.47.179.217 ( talk) 13:50, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Someone recently cut the following passages from the section on Northern Ireland:
I haven't restored the first because it isn't about NI. James500 ( talk) 02:12, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
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The claimed legal position in Scotland here and elsewhere seems to be based on the same unsourced assertion that abortion was previously a Common Law offence 'unless performed for “reputable medical reasons”'. My understanding from comments made around the time of the 1967 Act was that abortion was not a specific offence in Scots Law; this is to be distinguished from other offences committed by the consequences of an abortion. Note also that organisations such as SPUC Scotland wrongly quote English Law (e.g. Offences Against the Person Act 1861) when addressing the legal position. MBRZ48 ( talk) 20:43, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
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I think the section about Northern Ireland should be split to create a new article titled Abortion in Northern Ireland. It's clearly notable enough, and that is where a lot of the coverage is. I'm surprised it wasn't an article already. — Mr. Guye ( talk) ( contribs) 04:33, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Note: I'm removing the {{ split section}} tag from the article, because there's been no update to this discussion for over a year now, and I don't think leaving it up will help get any more attention to this discussion if there hasn't been any for that long. If people disagree with me, please revert me/re-add the tag/restart the discussion . Seagull123 Φ 11:15, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
The article states that the 1967 act made provision for lawful abortions under 24 weeks. (It was actually 28 weeks)
Later it states (correctly) that the limit was reduced to 24 weeks from 28 weeks in 1990. I am not going to edit the article because in my experience this usually results in an edit war 90.248.77.28 ( talk) 04:40, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
Under "Church positions" we have the statement "It has been claimed that Catholic opposition to abortion follows from the "doctrine of the double-effect" which originated with St Thomas Aquinas."
I propose that the material is removed.
St.nerol ( talk) 08:26, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
It looks to me as if this article needs attention re Northern Ireland -- see talk:Abortion law#Northern Ireland and "UK GOVERNMENT GUIDANCE FOR HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS IN NORTHERN IRELAND ON ABORTION LAW AND TERMINATIONS OF PREGNANCY IN THE PERIOD 22 OCTOBER 2019 TO 31 MARCH 2020 IN RELATION TO THE NORTHERN IRELAND (EXECUTIVE FORMATION ETC) ACT 2019" (PDF). publishing.service.gov.uk. October 2019. I am not qualified to look at this much further than this -- could some editor more qualified re this than I please take a look at it? Thanks. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:04, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
The article would make it seem that abortions are stricter in the rest of the UK than Northern Ireland. This is farther from the truth. In 2019 Northern Ireland was brought in line with the rest of the UK, not the other way around. https://www.msichoices.org.uk/abortion-services/abortion-and-your-rights/ TheeFactChecker ( talk) 17:53, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
209,918 abortions were carried out in England and Wales in 2020 TheeFactChecker ( talk) 17:54, 17 February 2022 (UTC)