Changes Favoured In Abortion Law

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31225, 24 November 1966, Page 17

Changes Favoured In Abortion Law

f.V.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, November 23.

The vast majority of London’s Protestant clergymen supported new legislation on legalised abortion, according to a survey released in London yesterday.

But the survey, conducted by Britain's Abortion Law Reform Association, also showed that Roman Catholic clergy were opposed to any change in existing British laws.

At present, it is possible for a woman to get a legal abortion in Britain under certain rigidly defined conditions.

The survey was directed at practising Church of England. Methodist Baptist, Congregational, Presybterian, Quaker and Roman Catholic clergyin London and the Home counties.

Almost half of the Catholic priests who answered the survey said they had been consulted by people about abortion.

In striking contrast only 20 per cent of the Church of England clergy had been consulted and only seven per cent of the Congregationalist. Ninety-five per cent of the Roman Catholic priests questioned said they would not approve of abortion in any circumstances —the remaining five per cent approving only on grounds of rape. But 84 per cent of the Protestant clergy favoured abortion on the grounds of preserving physical health, 83 per cent to preserve mental

health, 68 per cent when there was a serious risk of a defective child being born and 49 per cent when the pregnancy was the result of intercourse with a girl under 16 years of age.

The Methodist, Congregationalist and Quakers were not as rigid as the other denominations, the survey found.