Sir: As Madeleine Simms admits (Letters, 7 March) there is
no means of knowing statis- tically the increase in abortions for 1968 over previous years. We must merely accept that the Abortion Act precipitated the increase in legal abortions: it is perfectly reasonable to suppose that it precipitated an increase in illegal ones as well.
One result of the Act is that the line divid- ing legal and illegal abortions has worn pretty thin. Although it would be misleading to sug- gest that all the 4,500-odd abortions carried out in approved London nursing homes be- tween April and September 1968 were suspect, it is principally operations in this category that have been masquerading as legal and that have been performed on a cash-down basis.
The news, freely transmitted in continental newspapers, that London has become 'the abortion paradise of Europe' may be a chest- nut to Mrs Simms. To the students and trained nurses who have to administer the new Act in NHS hospitals it is a bitter lemon—made no sweeter in the knowledge that an articulate lobby is pushing hard for even more permis- sive legislation.
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