Press Release – 28th November 2006

Anne Quesney, Director of Abortion Rights, the national pro-choice campaign said:
A MORI poll released today, shows strong support - 63 per cent - for a woman’s right end an unwanted pregnancy. The results are in line with previous studies, indicating a sustained majority support for the liberalisation of the abortion law.

Currently, women require the permission of two doctors before they can access an abortion. Some doctors oppose all abortion and can veto women’s decision or create unfair obstacles to services. NHS waiting lists can delay women by up to eight weeks and abortion is still denied to women in Northern Ireland.

Forty years after abortion was legalized in Britain, it is time law was brought in line with public opinion and laws in the US and other European countries where abortion is available at the request of the woman.

The poll also shows a further 54 per cent agreed with that ‘abortion should be allowed to take place up to 24 weeks, when two doctors agree it is best for the woman’s physical or mental health’, 28 per cent disagreed, 13per cent neither agreed nor disagreed and 6 per cent did not know.

The results confirm our experience that people are sympathetic to the needs of the tiny proportion of women who need later abortion. This is significant given the dominance of the minority anti-choice lobby in the abortion debate by over the past two years. The poll shows that, when given even basic information about the current safeguards and the small numbers women involved, there is public support for women’s right to make their own decisions about later abortion.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

1. Abortion Rights is the national pro-choice campaign, working to defend and extend abortion rights and provide a pro-choice voice to the media.

2. Abortion Rights is campaigning to:
· Liberalise the current UK abortion law and make abortion available on request in the first three months and with one doctor’s signature thereafter.
· Improve access to, and experience of, abortion – ensure that all women in the UK have equal access to safe, legal and free abortion.
· Oppose any restrictions to women’s current rights and access to abortion.

3. Abortion in the UK
· One in three women has an abortion in her lifetime.
· Abortion laws in the UK are more restrictive than in almost every other European country, where abortion on request is legal in the first three months of pregnancy
Abortion has been legal in Britain since 1967, but only by permission of two doctors and in restricted circumstances.
· Ten per cent of GPs consider themselves to be conscientious objectors and frequently refuse to grant women an abortion, despite General Medical Council guidelines.
· The 1967 Abortion Act was never extended to Northern Ireland.

4. The poll by IPSOS MORI for bpas, published today, Tuesday 28th November, shows a strong majority - 63 per cent of British adults - agreed that ‘if a woman wants an abortion, she should not have to continue with her pregnancy’. Eighteen per cent disagreed with this statement. See the bpas website for details http://www.bpas.org/press-office/archive_2006/poll_shows_support_for_legal_abortion.html

Contact details: Anne Quesney, Director, Abortion Rights, T. 020 7923 9792, M. 07909 974 101

www.abortionrights.org.uk