Abortion on demand
Despite the unanimous feeling of its members that the Abortion Act should not be amended in a restrictive way, it is impossible to feel that Mrs Justice Lane's committee of investigation into the working of the act has made any useful, let alone weighty judgement on the central practical problem — what the so-called social clause in the Act actually means. There are, of course, other even more serious objections to the Committee's work and conclusions: but in this irresponsible age it would be utopian to expect a committee of experts examining abortion to make even feeble protestations about the sanctity of human life. Abortions, and abortions unnecessary under any philosophy of life save that which beleives they should be granted on demand, are on the increase and yet it is by no means clear to what extent Parliament has in the relevant legislation authorised the manner or the measure of their increase. When the Abortion Bill was passing through the House of Commons most of its supporters, and particularly Mr David Steel, its prime mover, protested that the social clause — which seems to allow abortion upon certain vague criteria regarding the social circumstances of the mother — did not mean abortion on demand. Yet, increasingly, that is precisely what it has come to mean. It is now urgent, despite the dereliction of Mrs Justice Lane and her colleagues, for Parliament to re-open the question and decide finally whether Britain in the 1970s is, after all, going to be the kind of society which wishes to sanction so shocking a practice.
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