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Appendix B English Abortion Law A Summary 1803 Lord Ellenborough’s Act makes the common law crime of abortion a felony. 1828 Lord Lansdowne’s Act extends the Ellenborough Act by prohibiting instrumental abortion. 1837 The Offenses against the Person Act repeals capital punishment for postquickening abortion, and also abolishes the distinction between abortions before and after “quickening.” 1861 The Offenses against the Person Act makes the maximum penalty for abortion life imprisonment; it outlaws the administering of drugs or use of instruments to procure a “miscarriage” whether or not it is known that a woman is pregnant (applies in Britain and Ireland). 1929 The Infant Life (Preservation) Act fills the gap left by the 1861 Act, in protecting babies capable of being born alive (deemed to be 28 weeks’ gestation) from being killed. 1938 The Bourne case rules that a woman’s quality of life can be taken into account when authorizing abortion, rather than that the sole consideration be to save life in an emergency. 1967 The Abortion Act authorizes abortion on several grounds; doctors performing abortions under these provisions are exempt from prosecution. 1990 The Human Fertilization and Embryology Act introduces a new time limit of 24 weeks’ gestation, but exempts abortions performed on the suspicion of fetal disability, effectively removing the upper time limit. 377   N.B. Abortion law in England and Wales is governed by the UK Parliament at Westminster, London; Northern Ireland law remains as in 1945 (i.e., the Bourne ruling applies) when the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Act extended the Infant Life Preservation Act to the six counties. Abortion and embryology law was specifically excluded from the Scottish Parliament’s remit on devolution in 1998; thus it is still governed by Westminster (see Keown 2002). 378   Appendix B ...

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