The parliamentary politics of abortion cannot now be neatly arranged around the twin poles of ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ – but they never could. The Abortion Act 1967 did not, and was never meant to, establish a ‘right to choose’ in law. Instead, it was meant as a partial fix to social problems including poverty, poor housing, and ‘overlarge’ families with tired mothers, but also ‘problem’ families, ‘unfit’ mothers, and ‘delinquent’ children. This was to be achieved not by liberating women to exercise their reproductive rights, but by engaging medical professionals as social agents and delivering (especially working-class) women into their care and control. The passage of the Act relied heavily on the dual image of doctors as socially responsible and of women seeking abortions as vulnerable and in need of paternal guidance.

This has funnelled discussions in a particular way, ultimately producing debates on abortion that are not about ‘life’ versus ‘choice’. Debates have instead hinged on questions of the meaning of ‘health’, the appropriate role of doctors in the governance of ‘social’ concerns, and the correct way to ‘protect’ women often conceived of as vulnerable. Attempts to further restrict abortion rights have rarely been made on the basis of the ‘right to life’ of the unborn, but rather on the basis that abortions are somehow harming women, while doctors are being corrupted by their role in performing them. In the wake of allegations that some women are selectively aborting female foetuses, some have asked questions about the appropriateness of ‘choice’ as a model for making sense of abortion.

Abortion rights advocacy in context

British abortion law is something of an anomaly in requiring such a great level of medical control over abortion (Cooper, 2016: 50– 5). Many European countries allow abortion on request; that is, without the need for medical grounds to be met. On the other hand, in countries where this is the case, it is usually much harder to access abortion after a certain point in pregnancy (usually 12 weeks’ gestation). This has allowed participants in the abortion debate to claim, variously, that the UK has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe and that it has some of the most permissive.