HC Deb 26 October 1990 vol 178 cc318-9W
Sir Michael McNair-Wilson

To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he will issue guidelines to the medical profession relating to the interpretation of the clause added to the Abortion Bill about the termination of pregnancies where there may be grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or where there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.

Mrs. Virginia Bottomley

The category ofsubstantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped is one of the grounds for abortion in the Abortion Act 1967. The application of that test is, and will remain, a matter of clinical judgment for decision by the two doctors who are required under the Act to form their opinion in good faith. That will also be the case for the new ground to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman", a form of words already specified as a ground for abortion in the emergency provisions in section 1(4) of the 1967 Act.