After a huge swing to Labour in the 1997 general election – including an unprecedented intake of female MPs – the issue of abortion went quiet for almost nine years. This election saw 120 women MPs elected, many of whom sought specifically to further women's interests (Childs, 2000; 2002). As a former Labour MP from this cohort told me, the high intake of women ‘started to change the culture’ of Parliament, making it easier for women to express certain views. Many of these women would later be highly active in defending the Abortion Act 1967 – or even pushing for further liberalization. Despite the lack of political activity, however, abortion provision began to change in practice. In the past decade or so, a gap had opened up between the law and practice as doctors became increasingly liberal in their attitude towards abortion and less inclined to stand in the way of the abortion decision. Meanwhile, more and more abortions were carried out in the charitable sector (with NHS funding), making abortion more widely available than ever before. However, many women still face logistical barriers to access to abortion (Aiken et al, 2018).

Medicalization continued to present problems in other ways. In 2011, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) made a bid to allow women to undergo early medical abortion in their own home. Early medical abortion requires a woman to take two medications, mifepristone and misoprostol, 24– 48 hours apart. Until 2017 in Scotland and 2018 in England and Wales, women had to take both pills in a clinic under medical supervision, meaning that those who had to travel long distances to reach a clinic could begin to miscarry on their journey home. BPAS argued that the law could be interpreted such that both pills would be prescribed in a clinic, but patients would be allowed to take the second pill at home, as in many other countries. However, the Department of Health opposed this move, and a High Court judge ruled that both pills must be taken under medical supervision (Greasley, 2011). This ruling appeared to reflect the ongoing conviction that abortions must be closely observed and controlled, even if this caused suffering. (As the following chapter discusses, the Department of Health relented in 2018, after the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales both moved to allow women to take the second pill at home.)