Doctors and Abortion There seeni to be good reasons for
supporting a recommendation, made in the report of a British Medical Association committee, that the legal position of doctors who undertake abortion for therapeutic reasons should be more clearly defined. In certain conditions it is legally permissible for doctors to perform this operation, as of course it must be,' but fear of prosecution, publicity, or scandal may make them hesitate to do so. The Committee suggests that their refusal to perform abortions legally tends to increase the number performed illegally, and it .quotes striking statistics from Russia to show how much more dangerous illegal abortions are than legal. The Russian figures indeed suggest that the change in the attitude of the Soviet Government on this subject is due to the frequency and safety with which such operations are legally per- formed in Russia, and the incompatibility of legal abortion on such a scale with the new desire for a higher birth-rate. That, however, is Russia's affair, not ours. British doctors are not asking, or likely to ask, for freedom to terminate any undesired pregnancy, but merely to be protected when they exercise their discre- tion in border-line cases. That is entirely reasonable.
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