Kent Law School hosted an event to mark the 50th anniversary of the passage and implementation of the Abortion Act, in the Wigoder Building Moot Chamber on Wednesday 21st March.
The event, entitled Abortion in Britain: past, present and future, was organised by the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies together with Kent’s Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Reproduction (CISoR).
It began with the showing of the documentary ‘Kind to Women: how the 1967 Abortion Act changed our lives’, followed by a Q & A with its director Dr Jayne Kavanagh (UCL Medical School) and Wendy Savage, a retired obstetrician and gynaecologist, who featured in the film.
In the film women who survived illegal abortion, the nurses who picked up the pieces when things went wrong and campaigning doctors and abortion rights advocates share vivid memories of the time, bringing to life the story of the ground-breaking legislation and of a historic turning point for women’s rights.
The event finished with a discussion on the future of abortion and the case for decriminalisation of abortion in the UK with comments from Professor Sally Sheldon (Kent Law School) and Ann Furedi, the CEO of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and author of The Moral Case for Abortion.