Editing Abortion in the United Kingdom (section)

===Early statute and modern case law===
The legality of abortion, and the value of the lives of pregnant women and unborn children, in common law was discussed by several English jurists from the Middle Ages onwards, including [[Henry Bracton]], [[William Stanford (judge)|William Stanford]], [[Edward Coke]] and [[William Blackstone]]. For example, Blackstone wrote in his 1765 ''[[Commentaries on the Laws of England]]'':

{{blockquote|Life{{nbsp}}[...] begins in contemplation of law as soon as an infant is able to stir in the mother's womb. For if a woman is {{em|quick}} with child, and by a potion, or otherwise, killeth it in her womb; or if any one beat her, whereby the child dieth in her body, and she is delivered of a dead child; this, though not murder, was by the ancient law homicide or manslaughter. But at present it is not looked upon in quite so atrocious a light, though it remains a very heinous misdemeanor.<ref>{{cite book |first=William |last=Blackstone |author-link=William Blackstone |chapter=Amendment IX, Document 1 |chapter-url=http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendIXs1.html |title=[[Commentaries on the Laws of England]] |orig-year=1765 |year=1979 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |volume=5 |page=388}}</ref>}}

Shortly after his appointment as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, [[Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough]], codified abortion as an offence in statute law, in England and Wales and Ireland, through the Malicious Shooting or Stabbing Act 1803, which became known as [[Lord Ellenborough's Act]]. This legislation and the subsequent acts in the 19th century did not apply to Scotland due to its separate legal system based on common law.

The 1803 Act introduced [[capital punishment]] for wilfully, maliciously, and unlawfully administering "any deadly poison, or other noxious and destructive substance or thing, with intent{{nbsp}}[...] to cause and procure the miscarriage of any woman, then being [[quickening|quick]] with child" (section 1) and penalties, at the discretion of the court, up to and including [[penal transportation]] for using means to "cause the miscarriage of any woman not being, or not being proved to be, quick with child" (section 2).<ref>{{cite book |title=Pickering's Statutes At Large |date=1804 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lord_Ellenborough%27s_Act_1803 |access-date=13 February 2023}}</ref>

The offences created by the 1803 Act were consolidated in the first [[Offences Against the Person Act 1828|Offences Against the Person Act]], introduced by [[Robert Peel]] and enacted for England in 1828, which outlined the same offences and punishments (section 13).<ref>{{cite web |title=Offences against the Person Act 1828 |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Offences_against_the_Person_Act_1828 |website=Wikisource |publisher=Statutes at Large |access-date=13 February 2023}}</ref> The same consolidation took place in Irish law through the [[Peel's Acts|Offences Against the Person (Ireland) 1829]] (section 16). Both Acts were replaced by the [[Offences Against the Person Act 1837]] which created a single abortion offence without a distinction around a pregnant woman being quick with child or not, and also repealed the death penalty for causing an abortion.

The law was again consolidated through the [[Offences against the Person Act 1861]], which continues to be the main legislation for prosecuting personal injury in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Act created two offences – administering drugs or using instruments to procure abortion (section 58), which replaced the previous legislation from 1839 and allowed for a sentence of life imprisonment; and procuring drugs, or any other means, to cause abortion (section 59) with a potential sentence of three years' imprisonment. The content of the 1861 Act was applied in colonial legislation throughout the British Empire in subsequent years e.g. the Offences Against the Person Act 1866 in New Zealand.<ref>{{cite web |title=Offences Against the Person Act 1866 |url=http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/oatpa186630v1866n19381 |website=New Zealand Legal Information Institute |publisher=University of Otago Faculty of Law, University of Canterbury & Australasian Legal Information Institute |access-date=13 February 2023}}</ref>

Alongside legislation against abortion, [[philanthropy]] encouraged more formal and organised arrangements to care for children born from unwanted pregnancies through the initiatives of social reformers; examples included the [[orphanage]] movement (which included the [[Foundling Hospital]], London, in 1739); the pioneering of [[Foster care in the United Kingdom|foster care]] in Cheshire in 1853 by John Armistead; and the Adoption of Children Act 1926, for England and Wales.<ref>{{cite web |title=Adoption of Children Act 1926 |url=https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/16-17/29/enacted |website=www.legislation.gov.uk |access-date=13 February 2023}}</ref>

In the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, [[Abortifacient|abortifacents]] were discreetly advertised for women with unwanted pregnancies who were seeking abortions; there was also a considerable body of folklore about inducing miscarriages. So-called 'backstreet' abortionists using methods such as these were relatively common although their efforts could be fatal. Estimates of the number of illegal abortions varied widely; by one estimate, 100,000 women made efforts to procure an abortion in 1914, usually by drugs.<ref>Szreter; Fisher</ref>

The criminality of abortion in [[England and Wales]] was reaffirmed in 1929, when the [[Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929|Infant Life (Preservation) Act]] was passed; the Act criminalised the deliberate destruction of a child "capable of being born alive". This was to close a lacuna in the law, identified by the former High Court judge [[Charles Darling, 1st Baron Darling]], which allowed for infants to be killed during birth, thus meaning that the perpetrator could neither be prosecuted for abortion or murder.<ref>{{cite hansard |jurisdiction=United Kingdom |house=[[House of Lords]] | title = Child Destruction Bill | url = https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1928/jul/12/child-destruction-bill-hl |date= 12 July 1928 |column_start= 998 |column_end= 1000 }}</ref> The Act included the presumption that all children ''in utero'' over 28 weeks of gestation were capable of being born alive. Where the life of child in utero was ended before this gestation, evidence was presented and considered to determine whether or not the child was capable of being born alive.

[[File:Five National Abortion Campaign badges, United Kingdom, 1970 Wellcome L0059391.jpg|thumb|National Abortion Campaign badges protesting for a women's right to choose to have an abortion, 1970s]]
The [[Abortion Law Reform Association]], an [[abortion rights]] lobbying group, was formed in 1936.

In 1938, the decision in ''R v. Bourne''<ref>''R v Bourne'' [1939] 1 KB 687, [1938] 3 All ER 615, [[Court of Criminal Appeal (England and Wales)|Court of Criminal Appeal]]</ref> allowed for further considerations to be taken into account. This case related to an abortion performed on a girl who had been raped, and extended the defence to abortion to include "mental and physical wreck" (Lord Justice McNaghtan). The gynaecologist concerned, [[Aleck Bourne]], later became a founder member of the anti-abortion group, the [[Society for the Protection of Unborn Children]] (SPUC)<ref>{{cite web | title = Our work | url = https://www.spuc.org.uk/our-work | website = spuc.org.uk | publisher = [[Society for the Protection of Unborn Children]] }}</ref> in 1966.

In 1939, the Inter-Departmental Committee on Abortion, established by the Home Office and Ministry of Health, recommended a change to abortion laws but the intervention of World War II meant that all plans were shelved. Post-war, after decades of stasis, certain high-profile tragedies, including disability in unborn children caused by the [[thalidomide]] drug, and social changes brought the issue of abortion back into the political arena.

Westminster's responsibility for criminal justice and health policy, including around abortion, on the island of Ireland was transferred to the [[Northern Ireland Parliament]] (on its formation in 1921) and the [[Parliament of the Irish Free State]] (formed in December 1922). Both legislatures took an essentially conservative position, viewing abortion as an offence against the person, or an offence of child destruction, in line with existing legislation in [[England and Wales]].