ABSTRACT
In the view of one writer, ‘English law has stumbled, through a series of criminalising and decriminalising provisions, into a period of liberalised abortion’ (Terry (1990), p 76). The same writer says that, in the context of abortion and the legal protection afforded to the fetus, English law is ‘dominated by unanswered questions’ and ‘difficult decision making with regard to abortion has been abdicated to the medical profession’. According to Keown, ‘whether the common law prohibited the destruction of unborn life has been, and remains, a controversial question’ (see Keown (1988), p 3).
