Pregnancy Termination: Why is there debate about the ethics of pregnancy termination?
Before 1967, it was illegal to terminate (abort) a pregnancy in the UK. The case of a fourteen-year old girl who was raped by officers of the Royal Horse Guards in 1938 illustrates the difficulty. The parents sought an abortion for their daughter. Understandably, they argued that the baby would remind their daughter of her frightening experience. The girl was admitted to hospital under the care of Mr Aleck Bourne, a gynaecologist in London. He agreed that termination of the pregnancy was in the girl's best interest and undertook the procedure risking a twenty-year prison sentence. The judge at the Old Bailey accepted that, although the operation had not been performed to save life, it preserved the girls mental and physical health. The jury found in favour of the gynaecologist. This case was undoubtedly a big step on the road to the Abortion Act of 1967. It is noteworthy that Aleck Bourne eventually became a member of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child because of his concerns that the Abortion Act would lead to abortion on demand.
