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  • Orr, Judith

    Abortion Wars, 09/2017
    Book Chapter

    The Abortion Act 1967 made it possible for hundreds of thousands of women to access legal, safe and free abortions in Britain for the first time. Veteran campaigner for women’s reproductive rights, Dr Wendy Savage, has said of the impact of the Act that it ‘virtually eliminated deaths from unsafe abortions in Great Britain and freed women from the nightmare of unplanned pregnancy’.¹ It was the culmination of years of campaigning and pressure from below from women, the labour movement, medical staff and ALRA. Liberal MP David Steel led the Bill, but a sympathetic Labour government helped enable its success.