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Vagina Museum

27 Oct, 8 tweets, 2 min read

On this day in 1967, the Abortion Act received royal assent, legalising terminations of pregnancy under certain grounds. At the time the Act was passed, there were around 60 deaths per year from illegal "backstreet" abortions, and many more serious injuries and complications.

The Abortion Act 1967 establishes circumstances under which abortion is permitted. It has only ever applied in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and has never been in effect in Northern Ireland.

However, abortion remains regulated under criminal law in GB - what the Abortion Act 1967 does is establish circumstances for lawful abortion care, while a Victorian law, the Offences Against The Person Act of 1861 still applies to abortions outside of these circumstances.

This means that under the law in Great Britain, in theory if you were to purchase abortion pills from the internet and take them yourself, you could face 12 years in prison.

Abortion is the only medical procedure regulated under criminal law.

In Northern Ireland, the situation is different. The relevant abortion law, up until 2019, has simply been the relevant sections of the Offences Against The Person Act, rendering abortion a crime.

In 2019, the sections of the Offences Against The Person Act were repealed.

This means that in Northern Ireland, abortion is not a criminal offence, while in Great Britain it is under some circumstances!

But in Northern Ireland, rollout of provision of legal and safe abortion care has been slow to the point of non-existence. The country has been given a deadline of establishing services by March 2022.

54 years on from the Abortion Act, there's still a lot of work to be done around ensuring safe and legal access to abortion care in Great Britain, the UK... and all around the world.

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