Providers, profiteers and pontius pilates: The medicalization of abortion and its impact on post-WWII Britain

Description

The British Abortion Act (1967) was at the vanguard of a wave of liberalising legislation across the Western world. While its text has remained virtually unchanged, the last five decades have seen a significant evolution in the implementation and impact of the Act and the narratives woven around it, including continuous public and political debate about the extent to which decision-making around pregnant women’s bodies should be the responsibility of the state, the medical profession, or the women themselves. This paper will focus on how the Act ‘medicalized’ abortion, placing abortion firmly under medical control, and the decidedly mixed blessing that this constituted.

Period	29 Nov 2018
Held at	University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
Degree of Recognition	National