Abortion is a politically controversial issue in many Western countries, mainly because it clashes with some Christian teachings on the sanctity of life. In the past, by contrast, some communist societies had made abortion so easy that, in the Soviet Union, for example, it was close to being the main method of birth control. It is still extensively, and often compulsorily, practised in the People’s Republic of China. The controversy revolves around two issues: the first is one of natural rights, of a woman to decide whether she wants to give birth, and of an unborn child to have life; the second concerns the level of church interference in state policies. Although Roman Catholicism is often seen as having the most firm teachings against abortion, anti-clerical sentiments have usually predominated in Europe, so that even Italy has a fairly liberal abortion policy. Ireland, by contrast, with a tradition of state subservience to the church on matters of private morality, still denies abortion in most circumstances. The legalization of abortion more or less ‘on demand’ in Britain, in 1968, was relatively uncontroversial, being carried out by a private member’s bill, with all parties allowing their members a free vote; subsequent attempts to reverse or substantially modify abortion legislation have been unsuccessful.
It is in the USA that abortion has been the most explosive political issue. Until 1974 there was no federal law on abortion, the issue being treated, as are most matters of private behaviour, as falling under the jurisdiction of the individual states, with consequent variation of policy throughout the country. In 1973 the Supreme Court, in its Roe v.
Wade decision, ruled that the states could only regulate abortion in limited ways, depending mainly on the stage of pregnancy at which a woman sought an abortion. Arguments over the viability of a foetus have become more problematic since the ruling, as medical science continually lowers the age at which an infant might realistically hope to survive, and consequently also at which the states might seek to intervene. Both the Catholic Church and the increasingly politically-important Protestant fundamentalist movements have opposed the Roe v. Wade decision ever since, sometimes in violent ways. Anti-abortionists are particularly prominent in new right politics, but are present right across the political spectrum. Candidates for electoral office have increasingly come under pressure to take a public stand on abortion from pressure groups on either side, and some state governments have continued to try to exceed the Roe v. Wade limits on state intervention. As the Supreme Court became more conservative over the years, as the result of appointments by more right-wing presidents, the liberal intentions of the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision have been increasingly restricted in later rulings, but the basic principle has never been overturned. The issue has become important in the new democratic republics of Eastern Europe, and the constitutional courts of countries like Hungary have gone to great pains to find a balance between protecting women’s rights and allowing the new governments to interfere without restrictions. Ireland apart, Germany is the only country in which a constitutional court has taken a firm anti-abortion position as a matter of outright principle, but even there abortion is relatively easily obtained. Islamic societies share much the same attitude as that of Christian pressure groups in the West, and abortion is largely banned.
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