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Too many abortions: Lord Steel

Lord Steel, architect of the 1967 Abortion Act, says today that abortion is being used as a form of contraception in Britain and admits he never anticipated "anything like" the current number of terminations when leading the campaign for reform.

The Liberal Democrat peer, whose bill legalising abortion in certain circumstances marks its 40th anniversary on Saturday, says an "irresponsible" mood has emerged in which women feel they can turn to abortion "if things go wrong".

"Everybody can agree that there are too many abortions," he says in an interview in today's Guardian, calling for better sex education and access to contraceptive advice and a debate over sexual morality to help bring the numbers down.~~

There were almost 194,000 terminations in England and Wales last year, rising to over 200,000 when women coming from Northern Ireland and the Irish republic are included. That was almost 4% up on the previous year, with abortions among teenagers the fastest rising group.

The figures were described yesterday by Catholic church leaders as "a source of distress and profound anguish for us all", in the run-up to likely attempts by both pro- and anti-abortion campaigners to reform the current law this autumn.

Lord Steel, who endured threats of violence and sacks of hate mail when pushing through his private member's bill as a young MP 40 years ago, makes clear he has "no regrets" over the landmark legislation, and does not regard restricting access to abortion as the answer to the rising number of terminations.

He says he is not yet persuaded that the upper legal time limit should be cut from its present 24 weeks - a limit endorsed by the BMA and other medical bodies - and believes there is a strong case that the requirement for two doctors' signatures in order to have an abortion should be dropped in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy in order to limit delays and distress.

He conceded yesterday that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, "had a point" in warning in an article in last Sunday's Observer that abortion is now being treated as too easy to obtain.

Lord Steel said: "I accept that there is a mood now which is that if things go wrong you can get an abortion, and it is irresponsible, really. I think people should be a bit more responsible in their activities, and in particular in the use of contraception."

He says a lack of research into the reasons women choose to have an abortion is hampering efforts to tackle the problem of rising numbers. But, asked whether abortion is being used in some cases as a form of contraception, he said: "I am afraid it is."

He added: "At the moment we are all operating in the dark. But I think there is a view that particularly those who present for repeated abortions are treating it as 'long stop' [back-up] contraception." Parliament never intended the law to be used in that way, said Lord Steel, who brought his legislation in an effort to save the lives of pregnant women dying at the hands of back street abortionists or by suicide.

He wants improved sex education in schools covering both sexual ethics and the use of contraception.

But he said the Catholic church's opposition to contraception "is absolutely contributing to the use of abortion as contraception".

Full story at The Guardian.