Court refuses to halt abortion

Press, 26 February 1987, Page 7

Court refuses to halt abortion

NZPA correspondent London A 21-year-old Oxford student is free today to have an abortion after her former boyfriend failed in an unprecedented legal battle to stop her undergoing the operation. In a landmark decision yesterday, the Court of Appeal in London backed a High Court ruling that the man, also a student at Oxford University, was not entitled to an order preventing the pregnant woman from haviing an abortion. Moves began immediately to appeal to the House of Lords, Britain’s highest court, but the Law Lords refused to hear the case, saying it did not raise an "arguable point of law.” Their decision is final and cleared the way for the operation to proceed as planned today.

The High Court judge, Mrs Justice Rose Heilbron, ruled that the foetus had no legal standing to enable the man to bring legal action on its behalf. She said there was no basis to the man’s claim that aborting the foetus would contravene the 1929 Infant Life Preservation Act

In the Court of Appeal, Sir John Donaldson ruled that the 18-week foetus would be unable to breathe if it was born now. In that case, it was not a criminal act to abort it.

The woman was entitled to an abortion because she had undergone X-ray examinations and taken anti-depressant drugs at a time when she thought she was not pregnant, he said.