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  • Title: Legal abortion: a changing scene.
    Author: Hordern A.
    Journal: Prevent; 1972; 1(2):17-23. PubMed ID: 12277004.
    Abstract:
    The abortion scene since the passage of the 1967 Abortion Act in Great Britain is described. It is noted that 2 factors are of special relevance to legal abortion: the change that has occurred in the role and status of women and the domination of modern life by the media, especially television, which employs sexual stimulation in entertainment and advertising. Since the Abortion Act, legal abortions rose from the equivalent of 35,000 cases in 1968 to 54,819 in 1969, 83,851 in 1970, and 126,774 in 1971. The proportion of terminations performed under the National Health Service fell from 61% in 1968 and in 1969 to 55% in 1970 and 43% in 1971. There has also been a regional variation in National Health Service terminations. Aside from religious objections, most of the disfavor with which the Act has been regarded stems from the increasing number of terminations performed, the commercialization that followed it, and the complications produced by the procedure. Technical advances have occurred so rapidly that previous experience of therapeutic abortion and the attitudes resulting there from are obsolete. Prostaglandin use, vacuum aspiration, and menstrual evacuation are such techniques. Neglect of contraception continues to be a problem. Couples appear as competitive birth control techniques. With the passage of time contraceptive usage may become effective and the abortion rate decline, although abortion will continue to be needed as an indispensable last resort.
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