ABSTRACT
In just over twenty years since the Abortion Act was passed in 1967 much has changed for women. Above all, the greater availability of abortion has brought increased sexual and economic freedom to those who do not wish to be or become pregnant. There have also been concomitant changes affecting those who do wish to bear a child. Some of these are the direct effect of the Act itself, such as the dramatic fall in the number of healthy babies put up for adoption, so that infertile women now are having to seek other means in order to be able to raise babies of their ‘own’, including various new technological methods of conception. Other changes are more indirect, such as the development of methods of pre-natal diagnosis of foetal disabilities, made worthwhile, from a medical point of view, only by the legality of abortion for affected foetuses.
