Last week we witnessed an event that I never thought I would see in my lifetime: the overturning of Roe v Wade. This 1973 Supreme Court decision held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, the right to privacy, […]
Tag Archives: abortion
Conscientious objection ‘may become indefensible’ according to new WHO guidance
The World Health Organization (WHO) has updated its Abortion Care Guidance recently, ostensibly ‘in a bid to protect the health of women and girls and help prevent over 25 million unsafe abortions that currently occur each year’. The implication throughout the guidance is that unsafe […]
Wrongful conception – the latest weapon in culling disability?
At the end of November, in the High Court, the case of Toombes v Dr Philip Mitchell was heard before Rosalind Coe QC, acting judge. The claimant, 20-year-old Evie Toombes, sued her mother’s GP, Dr Mitchell, on the grounds of her own wrongful conception. Had […]
Downright Discrimination – the issues in the Heidi Crowter case
On July 6th and 7th 2021, Heidi Crowter made history. She is the first woman with Down syndrome to take the State to court over the discrimination inherent in our abortion law. Her co-claimants Máire Lea-Wilson and her son Aidan (pictured) also feel passionately about […]
‘Don’t bother the midwife’: abortion as a parable for assisted suicide
The current series of Call the Midwife is set in 1966. We dispensed with World Cup fever in about half an episode and are now focussing on other things in the news that year. The most significant of these, from a midwifery perspective, was David […]