§ Mr. Marlowasked the Attorney-General whether he will make a statement on his recent decision not to prosecute doctors in circumstances where abortions were carried out for social reasons.
§ The Attorney-GeneralI have not made any such decision and I will not be making any statement on this matter. In my letter of 22 February 1982 to the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) I explained that specific cases which had been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions had been investigated by the police and that those investigations had not disclosed any evidence to show that these abortions had been performed for social reasons. In each case the doctors claimed that there were medical grounds for terminating the pregnancies.