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The 1967 Abortion Act is marked as an historic victory for the pro-choice movement and an important part of Britain’s social history. The Act took abortion out of the backstreet, particularly for poor and working class women, and introduced safe, legal abortion. Now 50 years on more people than ever before support women’s right to choose and make their own reproductive decisions in Britain.
Kelley Temple (Abortion Rights), journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge, Sally Sheldon (Professor of Law, University of Kent – pictured) and sociologist Jackie West (University of Bristol) discuss the Act, from examining how it was won and commemorating the activists to exploring current barriers to abortion access.
In partnership with /
Abortion Rights is the national pro-choice campaign. They are campaigning to defend and extend women’s rights and access to safe, legal abortion.
Panel
Kelley Temple is the Secretary of Abortion Rights and has been an Executive Committee Member of Abortion Rights since 2012. She supports Abortion Rights’ work on parliamentary affairs and has produced briefings for students including a legal briefing for Student Unions ‘Keeping Campuses Pro Choice’. She works as a Campaigns Manager for a large charity.
Reni Eddo-Lodge is an award-winning journalist. Her work can be found at the New York Times, Voice, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Stylist, Inside Housing, Pool, Dazed and Confused and the New Humanist. She is the winner of an MHP 30 to Watch Award and was chosen as one of the 30 Most Exciting People Under 30 in Digital Media by the Guardian in 2014. She has been listed in Elle’s 100 Inspirational Women list and The Roof’s 30 Black Viral Voices Under 30. She has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and was a panellist for Woman’s Hour’s 2014 Power List. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race is her first book. Follow her on Twitter @renireni
Sally Sheldon is a Professor of Law at the University of Kent. She has published widely in health care law and the legal regulation of gender, including books on abortion law, feminist perspectives on health care law, fatherhood, and fathers’ rights activism. She is currently working on a large project funded by the AHRC, entitled ‘The Abortion Act (1967): A Biography’. She is a founder member of Lawyers for Choice and a trustee of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.
Dr Jackie West is Hon Senior Research Fellow in Sociology at the University of Bristol. An active member of the WLM Women’s Abortion & Contraception Campaign, her research and teaching has focused on sexuality, the family and employment. She was vice chair of the Brook Advisory Centre in Bristol for many years and undertook research and consultancy for the Health Authority on young people, sexual health clinics and teenage pregnancy. She is currently involved in an EU project on sex work and prostitution policy.
