1967 Abortion Act
David Steel's Medical Termination of Pregnancy Bill 1966
A brief summary of how David Steel's Private Members' Bill on the Medical Termination of Pregnancy was influenced by Sir Dugald Baird.
Lord David Steel
The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Bill was published on 15 June 1966. Introduced by (now Lord) David Steel, a young Scottish Borders MP, it became law forty years ago as the 1967 Abortion Act, and was the first piece of abortion-related legislation to cover Scotland, England and Wales together. The aim of Steel’s Private Members’ Bill was to amend and to bring clarity to the law as it related to the termination of pregnancy by doctors.
On the bill’s fortieth anniversary, it’s perhaps worth recalling the role played by an Aberdeen doctor, Sir Dugald Baird (1899–1986), not only in relation to its drafting, but also in the history of Scottish abortion policy and practice.
Sir Dugald Baird
While working as a registrar at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, the Greenock-born physician became interested in how social and economic conditions influenced maternal health. He had been shocked by the lack of family planning advice, the lack of abortion provision and the high death rates among women who bore many children. In 1937, when Baird arrived at Aberdeen University to take up his post as Regius Chair of Midwifery, he was determined that the city should have clear policies relating to maternal care.
Glasgow and Aberdeen
In Scotland at this time abortion was only considered a crime if criminal intent could be proved. But whereas in Glasgow abortion was an unpopular procedure, due mainly to its high proportion of Roman Catholics, Aberdeen, with its relatively enlightened political attitudes, was more amenable to Baird’s more liberal brand of clinical practice.
Fifth Freedom
Writing in the British Medical Journal in 1965, Baird asserted that women should achieve what he called a ‘Fifth Freedom’ — ‘freedom from the tyranny of excessive fertility’, and was by now active in promoting abortion law reform and the NHS provision of contraception. In November 1966, while David Steel was drafting the bill, he met Sir Dugald Baird who impressed upon the politician that social factors and medical considerations were inseparable.
Professor Ian Donald
However, while the Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA) was pointing to Aberdeen as an example of a city with a successful record of abortion policy, diametrically opposed to Sir Dugald Baird was Glasgow-based Professor Ian Donald, who described Baird’s ‘Fifth Freedom’ as a ‘doctrine of hideous atheistic expediency’. In contrast to Baird’s alignment with the ALRA, Prof Donald became a founder member of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child.
