Costly consequences

Almost 50 years on from the 1967 Abortion Act, Dr Adele Pilkington reviews the grim realities of what has become a consumer industry…

On 27th October 1967, in a half-empty House of Commons, Parliament voted to decriminalise abortion. Since 1967 more than 8.4 million unborn babies have been ‘legally’ killed in the UK, equivalent to the combined population of Scotland and Wales. Since abortion was first legalised in the former Soviet Union in 1920, there have been over one billion babies killed worldwide1.

The Abortion Act does not currently apply in Northern Ireland, although the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and British Humanist Association are determined to change this, and could be assisted by the recent change in power sharing within the devolved legislature of Northern Ireland.2