Chapter 2 traces the Act’s early, formative years. We explain how its meaning was negotiated as women arrived in doctors’ surgeries seeking services that they now believed to be lawful and how doctors worked to understand and apply the new law. We explore how, over time, different interpretations of the Act coexisted, fell out of use or became entrenched in professional codes, internal policy and procedure documents, official guidance and medical curricula. The chapter ends in 1974 with the publication of two important texts discussing the workings of the Abortion Act in these early years: the sensationalist media expose Babies for Burning and the highly influential and authoritative Lane Report.

Chapter 5 considers those battles regarding the Abortion Act that found their way to the courts, as broader struggles over the meaning of the Act became framed as narrow, technical questions of statutory interpretation. We consider the role of Pro-Life (and, to a much lesser extent, Pro-Choice) groups in driving this litigation and explore how the focus and framing of these disputes would change over time in line with the shifting centre of the moral debate. We consider how meaning was given to the statutory text, emphasising the important roles played by doctors in giving meaning to the Act before these disputes reached the courts.