Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to look forward, 30 years after the Abortion Act 1967 became law, to identify the lessons which can be learnt for future abortion campaigning by looking back at the experiences of those 30 years. The discourse on abortion which has caught the public imagination in this time is the claim of ‘A Woman’s Right to Choose’: the slogan adopted by the women’s movement in the 1970s in campaigns seeking to defend existing abortion provision.1 This chapter considers the use of this slogan as an expression of ‘what women need’ and its place in a strategy for abortion campaigning into the next millennium.
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Notes
Carol Smart, Feminism and the Power of Law, London, Routledge, 1989, p. 147.
Sally Sheldon, ‘The Law of Abortion and the Politics of Medicalisation’, in Law and Body Politics: Regulating the Female Body, Jo Bridgeman and Susan Millns (eds), Aldershot, Dartmouth, 1995.
Along with the abolition of capital punishment (Murder (Abolition of Capital Punishment) Act 1965), the partial legalization of homosexual acts (Sexual Offences Act 1967), and legislation enabling local authorities to provide advice on and supply contraceptives (National Health Service (Family Planning) Act 1967). Madeleine Simms, ‘Legal Abortion in Great Britain’, in The Sexual Politics of Reproduction, Hilary Homans (ed.), Aldershot, Gower, 1985. See also Chapter 1 in this volume.
Deborah Lynn Steinberg, ‘Adversarial Politics: the Legal Construction of Abortion’, in Off-Centre: Feminism and Cultural Studies, Sarah Franklin, Celia Lury and Jackie Stacey (eds), London, HarperCollins, 1991, p. 188.
Michael Thomson, ‘After Re S’ (1994), 2 Med.L.Rev. 127, 144.
Rosalind P. Petchesky, ‘Foetal Images: the Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction’, in Reproductive Technologies: Gender, Motherhood and Medicine, Michelle Stanworth (ed.), Cambridge, Polity, 1987.
Katherine De Gama, ‘A Brave New World: Rights Discourse and the Politics of Reproductive Autonomy’, J of Law and Society 20 (1993), 114, 116
Susan Himmelweit, ‘More than “A Woman’s Right to Choose”?’, Feminist Review 38 (1988) 29, 49.
Carol Gilligan, ‘Feminist Discourse, Moral Values, and the Law — A Conversation’, Buffalo Law Review 34 (1985), 11, 38.
Stephanie Palmer, ‘Critical Perspectives on Women’s Rights: The European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms’, in Feminist Perspectives on the Foundational Subjects of Law, Anne Bottomley (ed.), London, Cavendish, 1996, pp. 226–7.
Elizabeth Kingdom, ‘Legal Recognition of a Woman’s Right to Choose’, in What’s Wrong with Rights?: Problems for a Feminist Politics of Law, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1991, p. 46.
Michael Thomson, ‘After Re S’, Med.L.Rev 2 (1994), 127, 141.
Joyce Outshoorn, ‘Abortion Law Reform: A Woman’s Right to Choose?’ in Women, Equality and Europe, M. Buckley and M. Anderson (eds), Houndmills, Macmillan Press, 1988, p. 206.
Sally Sheldon, ‘Who is the Mother to Make the Judgement?: The Construction of Woman in English Abortion Law’, Feminist Legal Studies, 1 (1993), 3. See also Chapter 3 in this volume.
Marge Berer, ‘Whatever Happened to “A Woman’s Right to Choose”?’, Feminist Review 24 (1988), 29, 35.
Examples given of failure rates with ‘correct use’ are: Female Sterilization 0.13 per cent, Combined Oral Contraceptive Pills 0.16–0.27 per cent, Copper 7 IUD 1.5 per cent, Condom 3.6 per cent. John Guillebaud and Barbara Law, ‘Contraception’, in Women’s Problems in General Practice, Ann McPherson (ed.), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1987, p. 127.
Scarlett Pollock, ‘Refusing to Take Women Seriously: “Side-Effects” and the Politics of Contraception’, in Test-Tube Women — What future for Motherhood?, R. Arditti, R. Duelli Klein, S. Minden (eds), London, Pandora Press, 1984.
Kristin Luker, ‘Contraceptive Risk Taking and Abortion. Results and Implications of a San Francisco Bay Area Study’, Family Planning Perspectives 8 (1977), 190.
Linda Clarke, ‘Abortion: A Rights Issue?’ in Birthrights: Law and Ethics at the Beginnings of Life, Robert Lee and Derek Morgan (eds), London, Routledge, 1991, p. 168.
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© 1998 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Bridgeman, J. (1998). A Woman’s Right to Choose?. In: Lee, E. (eds) Abortion Law and Politics Today. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26876-4_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26876-4_7
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