‘Babies for Burning’ shows abortion law abuse

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33806, 1 April 1975, Page 18

‘Babies for Burning’ shows abortion law abuse

Two British journalists have produced a report on private abortion clinics in Britain. New Zealand booksellers have ordered several thousand copies of the book, which “The Times” of London says shockingly illustrates abuses of Britain’s new abortion law.

An Abortion Act was passed in Great Britain in 1967. The act allows pregnancies to be terminated legally if continuing the pregnancy would involve

risk to the life or physical or mental health of the woman, or to the physical or mental health to children born to the woman earlier, or if there is substantial risk that if the child were born it would be seriously handicapped.

Two doctors have to decide “in good faith” that an abortion is justified on one or more of these grounds. Under another act, no abortion may be performed after the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy.

A committee, chaired by Mrs Justice Lane, studied the effects of the new law. The Lane Report is des-

cribed by the two journalists who have written an account of their own investigations — “Babies for Burning” — as “a whitewash.” The authors of “Babies for Burning,” Michael Litchfield and Susan Kentish, approached private abortion clinics in various guises, generally as a couple seeking an abortion. They report that at the testing and advisory agencies no efforts were made to establish whether there were legal grounds for an abortion. The couple’s not wanting the child was almost universally accepted as a good!

.enough reason for an abortion. “If they let a pregnant girl out of their grasp, it is less money in the bank for them,” say the authors. Susan Kentish, not pregnant when they were conducting their investigation, was consistently found to be bearing a child both by urine tests and internal examinations by those engaged in “the abortion circus.” They found a “record of 100 per cent inaccuracy throughout the abortion clinics, testing units and pregnancy ‘advisory’ services of Great Britain.” Only one of the services they encountered throughout their inquiry gave “advice” which, in their opinion, was within the bounds of the: law. The doctors who approved, i the abortion, and who would;

have performed the operation, the investigators decided were the “dead beats” I of their profession. Most j worked on the “empty philosophy of the fast buck.” .'When they delibera*’v test- , ed one doctor to if he I was complying with me act, ; they were told “In the private sector we don’t turn down any cases.” None of the doctors bothered to check the woman’s medical history, say the writers. “They never really know on whom they are operating”; it was “almost taken for granted” that the patient would offer a false name and address. One doctor offered, if the; girl had left it too late to

- terminate the pregnancy, to t sell the baby for adoption i after birth. Legalised aborr tion has created a scarcity of new-born babies for adop- - ti,on, according to the - authors. , Litchfield and Kentish say : that many of those who are rin the abortion business I have extreme fascist ideas. ; “Babies for Burning” rei ports interviews with girls i who have had abortions, and it contains comparative mat- : erial on the “racketeering , and profiteering” in coun- , tries where the law is less stringent that it is in Brit- ] ain, notably the United!, States and the Netherlands. The journalists concluded ! I that there is now, in Britain ; I “abortion on demand in the I private sector,” and some- j times even more. “A preg-j Inant girl with a modicum of! (cash does not have to de-j* mand an abortion. Her big-!' gest problem is trying told resist having it thrust upon I 1 her,” they say. [ The evidence to support; these conclusions is present-It ed almost entirely in the:'[ form of transcribed conver-jt sations with doctors and the staffs of various clinics and’J, testing and advisory ser- j vices. o They claim that they can | Drove the authenticity of all 1 their quotations. Names are named; addresses are given. Several efforts were made to 2 suppress the book by legal J action, and the authors have challenged anyone to take them to court on the infor- c mation given in the book. <i