Member

Luckily, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is not in his place, because I want to try to untangle some law, which might of course be a disaster. Despite the best efforts of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, who has, perfectly reasonably, kept trying to explain what is and is not in the law, we need to get a few bits sorted. The Abortion Act 1967 did not decriminalise abortion. It simply made it legal under certain circumstances, which are that the woman would be signed off by two doctors and that she met one of seven criteria. In other words, it created a legal defence for doctors against the Offences against the Person Act 1861 and the criminal law.