ABSTRACT
This chapter explains why an understanding of the different sources is so important under the United Kingdom (UK) constitution. It aims to evaluate the extent to which the UK constitution is ‘written’ or ‘uncodified’. In addition, there are numerous non-legal, but binding, rules which surround and give meaning to the legal rules of the constitution, the most important of which are constitutional conventions. In the United States of America, by contrast, the right to abortion falls under the constitutional right to privacy provisions of the constitution. The Bill of Rights 1689 is of greater contemporary constitutional importance than Magna Carta and the Petition of Right. The source of the Bill of Rights lies in large measure, in the tensions between Roman Catholicism and the state, originating with the conflict between the Holy See of Rome and Henry VIII.
