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Disabilities, And Abortion In Modern America, By Leslie J. Reagan

1142 Words5 Pages

the academic book, Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America, written by Leslie J. Reagan. The story outlined is that of the German measles epidemic of the early 1960s and how it created national anxiety about dying, disabled, and “dangerous” babies. The novel explains how the epidemic would ultimately transform abortion politics, produce new science, and help build two of the most enduring social movements of the late twentieth century: the reproductive rights and the disability rights movements. With this in mind, as the novel touches on the subject of abortion linked to disease, Reagan led me to think about and explore further the ethics of aborting a disabled child. As it is a subject I have no personal experience with, I intended to start the entirety of this project from square one to provide a …show more content…

The Law and Legal Requirements
As it stands, under the UK Abortion Act 1967, “a person shall not be guilty of an offence under the law relating to abortion when a pregnancy is terminated by a registered medical practitioner if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion, formed in good faith that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped”. This therefore shows that Section 1(1)d of the UK's 1967 Abortion Act allows termination of a pregnancy at any time if there is a significant risk of the baby being born seriously

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