BMJ  2007;335:1018-1019 (17 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.39393.491968.94

Feature

Maternal Health

Abortion round the world

Hannah Brown, freelance journalist

Cambridge

hannah@two-cultures.com

In the recent UK debates about the upper time limit for termination of pregnancy, attention focused on the number of abortions since legalisation. But, as Hannah Brown reports, rates of abortions have been falling faster in Western countries than elsewhere

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Abortion is one of the most emotive and divisive of medical issues. The review of the 1967 Abortion Act by the House of Commons select committee on science and technology aimed to avoid complex ethical questions by sticking solely to scientific and medical developments. Nevertheless, the committee's cross party membership was irreconcilably divided when the final report was published last month. Two conservative MPs decided they could not with good conscience agree with the final conclusions—that women should not need the consent of two doctors for the procedure—claiming that they had been misled over survival rates and the extent to which fetuses can feel pain.

Highly charged public discussions on abortion in the United States have also been given new impetus over the past few years, with speculation about the likelihood of a conservative dominated Supreme Court overturning the landmark 1973 legal ruling for Roe versus Wade. This decreed that . . . [Full text of this article]


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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Selective abortion: Missing Indian Baby Girls
Akashdeep Singh, et al.
bmj.com, 16 Nov 2007 [Full text]
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Abortion rate must be lowest where abortion and contraception are illegal.
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