When the Abortion Bill came before the House of Lords, much attention was given to this question. The adjectives "serious," "grave" and "substantial" were considered, but their lordships finally adopted Lord Parker CJ's suggestion (moved in his absence by Lord Dilhorne, a strong opponent of relaxing the law), which now appears in the Act.

The risk of injury feared from allowing the pregnancy to continue must be "greater than if the pregnancy were terminated." Lord Parker said of llis amendment that the doctor's decision was to be arrived at by comparing one risk with another, and only if the risk in continuation were greater than the risk in termination would a defence be created under the Act. If that was the test, he said, it would be unnecessary and wrong to talk about risk as being "serious" or "substantial."

In making this move some of the opponents of freer abortion were perhaps misled by propaganda emanating from their own side. It had been widely argued, against the practice of abortion, that it was a dangerous operation, and on this supposition the formula was a restrictive one. Even so, the formula was a doubtful advantage for the restrictionists, because no one knew how long it might be before the danger of the operation was reduced, thus extending its legality. But in any case the assumption that the operation was particularly dangerous was wrong even in 1967, at least in cases where the termination was performed early enough.

Figures from Eastern Europe indicated that the operation, properly performed within the first trimester (the first three months of pregnancy), was much safer (at least from the point of view of mortality) than normal childbirth. This has also been found in England, and experience in performing the operation has steadily increased its safety. There are, of course, other risks associated with medical termination of pregnancy besides death, just as there are other risks associated with childbirth.

The wording of the Act, then, suggests the argument that first-trimester abortions are now left to medical discretion in the sense that if the doctor comes to the conclusion that, as the figures firmly show, the general mortality risk of a first-trimester abortion is less than maternal mortality, and if he further believes that the morbidity risk does not affect the general conclusion that abortion is safer, 3 and that there is nothing in his patient's condition to affect the application of the statistical argument to her case, he is entitled to terminate an early pregnancy without finding a more specific ground for termination.

Although this argument has not been ventilated in court, and would doubtless be regarded with extreme reserve by the judges, there is no logical answer to it. The risks associated with normal maternity must be among the risks resulting from a decision not to terminate, so that they can enter into a calculation of the risks that are "greater than if the pregnancy were terminated"; and if these risks by themselves are greater than the risks of termination, no other question need logically be asked.