Life before birth
By its recommendation that the right of a child to sue for injuries done to it before birth should be accepted the Law Commission has placed a formidable problem before both legislators and so-called liberal pressure groups, as well as the public as a whole. With a hypocrisy that has become ingrained over the years, the abortion lobby has argued that the child before birth ('foetus' is preferred as a less emotive word) has no right to life, in that the mother may choose in certain circumstances — in any circumstances if, as is becoming increasingly the case, clause three of the Abortion Law Reform Act is interpreted as a right to abortion on demand — to kill it. At the same time, in the thalidomide case, a sustained campaign against Distillers has suggested — and is supported in this suggestion by most liberal opinion — that the company is liable for damages done before birth to children whose mothers had taken the drug which the company put on the market. In our view Distillers would have an excellent total defence based on the accession of Parliament to the Abortion Law Reform Act, though such a defence would rest on patently absurd moral grounds. However, if the case against Distillers is to be accepted, along with the new report of the Law Commission then, clearly, the social clause at least of the Abortion Act must be repealed. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has frequently asked for a clarification of Parliament's intentions in the matter: that clarification must now be made, and the Commission's report must not be allowed to slip into forgotten obscurity.
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