BRITAIN: Pro-choice advocates escalate campaign

LONDON — The pro-choice movement here is intensifying its campaign to ensure women can gain "no strings" access to abortion. The campaign was spurred on by an abortion law conference in October which backed an end to all restrictions on terminations.

Abortion was legalised in Britain in 1967, but the law specifies that abortion can be accessed only if a woman can prove that she will suffer grave physical or mental injury without the operation.

Ann Furedi, spokesperson for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), told the October conference that abortion should be accepted as an "essential method of family planning", not as a problem or a failure. "The simple truth is that the tens of thousands women who seek abortions each year are not ignorant about contraception", she said.

Guidelines issued by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists earlier this year state that abortion is a "basic health care need", although the college has not gone so far as to call for a lifting of restrictions.

Anti-choice lobbyists are increasing their pressure on Tony Blair's Labour government to scrap the Abortion Act altogether.

BY LYNDA HANSEN

From GLW issue 427