ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the kinds of engagements and debates in the public sphere provoked and permitted by the models of social-welfare state. It focuses on statistics because increasingly numbers have formed the working materials of opinion-forming associations – groups which, according to Habermas, operate within the public sphere, challenging conventional wisdom and proposing alternative policies. Steel countered that notification would identify any practitioner undertaking more than a reasonable number of abortions, and would provide evidence sufficient for a criminal prosecution where justified. In some parts of the country, they argued, the National Health Service (NHS)was failing in its duty to provide for citizens according to their medical needs and, as a result, women entitled to have an abortion free at the point of delivery were being compelled to pay for it. The anti-abortion lobby also exploited the belief then widely held that payment for treatment represented a flaw in the pure crystal of the NHS.
