Chapter 3 explores a series of attempts to restrict the Abortion Act fought between 1974 and 1990. The early attacks were led by men, most of them Tories, and framed in terms of defending family values, personal responsibility and moral standards. We show how the Women’s Movement now claimed and defended the Act, itself being importantly shaped in the process. We describe how, over the course of two decades, the centre ground for debate would gradually shift, with attacks coming to be framed in a language of social justice, civil liberties and scientific advance. The chapter ends when Parliament is finally given the opportunity for a meaningful vote on theAct and uses it to endorse the Act’s broad framework.

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.