{"id":17224,"date":"1969-01-25T17:40:00","date_gmt":"1969-01-26T01:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=17224"},"modified":"2024-11-23T17:54:54","modified_gmt":"2024-11-24T01:54:54","slug":"the-abortion-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=17224","title":{"rendered":"The Abortion Act"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">T.L.T. Lewis<\/h4>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"172\" height=\"230\" src=\"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/bmj.jpg\" alt=\"British Medical Journal, BMJ\" class=\"wp-image-11229\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">British Medical Journal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Extract<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The part played by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the framing of the Abortion Act is familiar. The College aimed to make it legal to terminate a pregnancy only on medical grounds . . . Moreover, we wished to preserve the right of a doctor to refuse to participate in the treatment of any case to which he had an objection on grounds of conscience: hence the famous &#8220;conscience clause.&#8221; . . . we did not expect a very great change in practice . . . How wrong we were\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Lewis TLT.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC1982054\/\">The Abortion Act.<\/a>\u00a0 Br Med J. 1969 January 25; 1(5638): 241\u2013242<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>T.L.T. Lewis Extract The part played by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the framing of the Abortion Act is familiar. The College aimed to make it legal to terminate a pregnancy only on medical grounds . . . Moreover, we wished to preserve the right of a doctor to refuse to participate &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=17224\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Abortion Act&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,554,2,559,1405],"tags":[1975,1974],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-17224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-ethics","category-journal-article","category-law","category-obstetrics","tag-royal-college-of-obstetricians-and-gynaecologists","tag-t-l-t-lewis"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\r\n<title>The Abortion Act - Protection of Conscience Project Library<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The RCOG supported abortion only on medical grounds and wished to preserve freedom of conscience for objecting practitioners.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=17224\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"British Medical Journal, 1969\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The RCOG supported abortion only on medical grounds and wished to preserve freedom of conscience for objecting practitioners.\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=17224\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Protection of Conscience Project Library\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/consciencepro\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"1969-01-26T01:40:00+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-11-24T01:54:54+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/bmjog.jpg\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"338\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Project Administrator\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"British Medical Journal, 1969\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"The RCOG supported abortion only on medical grounds and wished to preserve freedom of conscience for objecting practitioners.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/bmjog.jpg\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@consciencpro\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@consciencpro\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Project Administrator\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/library.consciencelaws.org\\\/?p=17224#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/library.consciencelaws.org\\\/?p=17224\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Project Administrator\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/library.consciencelaws.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/263d102b35e3f7822db6d548b2555098\"},\"headline\":\"The Abortion Act\",\"datePublished\":\"1969-01-26T01:40:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-11-24T01:54:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/library.consciencelaws.org\\\/?p=17224\"},\"wordCount\":104,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/library.consciencelaws.org\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/library.consciencelaws.org\\\/?p=17224#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/library.consciencelaws.org\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/bmj.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists\",\"TLT Lewis\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Abortion\",\"Ethics\",\"Journal Articles\",\"Law\",\"Obstetrics &amp; Gynecology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/library.consciencelaws.org\\\/?p=17224#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/library.consciencelaws.org\\\/?p=17224\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/library.consciencelaws.org\\\/?p=17224\",\"name\":\"The Abortion Act - 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