Abortion Act Of 1967 Essay

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The abortion act of 1967 of The United Kingdom has given women the opportunity to access a legal and safe abortion. The latter offers lawful activities that would otherwise be seen as a crime under the Offences Against the Person Act from 1861 making it a crime for a woman to promote an abortion, or for anyone else to help her do so. The Act was amended in 1967 by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act created in 1990, it states that “an abortion is lawful if it is authorized by two doctors and performed by a registered medical practitioner, all acting in good faith and based on one of more of the following grounds : to save or to prevent major injury on the mother’s or the baby’s life or the authorized time limit of a pregnancy termination.

Before the 1967 act (that was imposed in England, Scotland and Wales), only wealthier women could offer themselves a safe abortion. Therefore, many illegal practices were present and used by women to end their pregnancy, this leading to the live of the mothers being in danger and in some cases even causing death. The significant amount of deaths and accidents that were caused by illegal termination grew so fast that …show more content…

Women from a wide variety of ages have abortions, varying from 14 to 60 years old. These women are not always aware of the negative effects of abortion and tend to see abortions as a plan B instead of thinking in advance and using the multiple existing contraceptive methods. It is becoming a plane subject in society; a staggering amount of young girls from the age of 13 to 19 have gone through an abortion in the UK. Post 1967, there was a rapid increase in the annual number of legal abortions, 6.7million women aborted wherefrom 98% for social reasons. The question one should ask themselves, would revising the 1967 act diminish the number of abortions and therefor prevent further abuse of the

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