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See analysis of the debate by Dundee University's Centre for Argument technology here:聽

The Story of the Debate聽

by Michael Buerk

It鈥檚 fifty years since an act of parliament changed abortion from being a serious crime into a lawful procedure, albeit under what were intended to be specific, if not strict, legal and medical conditions.

Half a century and nine million abortions on, it is still among the most vexed of moral issues, an argument that can never be resolved as it pits the biological autonomy of the woman against the right to life of the unborn. More, it calls into question what it is to be a person, what constitutes a morally discrete human being.

The central themes don鈥檛 change. The emphasis shifts ( you don鈥檛 hear much now about women dying from illegal, 鈥渂ack street鈥� abortions which was a key driver of the 1967 legislation). And the context changes 鈥� medical advances have brought forward the age at which a foetus might be independently viable, for instance, and being able to tell the sex early in pregnancy raises the controversial issue of abortion as a means of gender selection.

The argument as it turned out could be broken into two interwoven stages鈥�. How the act had turned out, whether there really was now 鈥渁bortion on demand鈥� and were lines drawn in the morally appropriate places. And then the bedrock argument about whether abortion was right at all.

We had four particularly good witnesses, passionate, committed and well-informed. They were clear, articulate and robust enough to look after themselves in that cockpit of cross-examination that is the Maze鈥檚 trademark.

These arguments ebb and flow, but in good programmes there are always key moments; moments when the clash of debate illuminates the issue or exposes a contradiction.

How had the act worked? The anti-abortionists said 200,000 abortions showed 聽it was too easy, that the conditions in the original act were being ignored, in some cases for convenience, if not fashion.

Professor Wendy Savage, a retired gynaecologist now in her 80s who had done thousands of abortions herself, said that just wasn鈥檛 the case in her experience. 聽And then 鈥� one of those flashes of illumination 鈥� she talked about one of the conditions in the act - the risk of continuing with the pregnancy should be greater than the risk of the termination. 聽Those who drafted it, Professor Savage said, had a mistakenly exaggerated view of the dangers of the operation. The fact was that the danger of continuing 聽with the pregnancy was always greater than that of an abortion, in the early stages at least, which meant, in legal terms, it could always be justified.

On the wider issue there were key moments during the interchange over the nature of the procedure itself. Aisling Hubert, a 鈥淧ro-Life鈥� campaigner who had spent 拢47,000 of her own money trying unsuccessfully 聽to prosecute two doctors over alleged gender selection terminations, talked powerfully about how that was what motivated her. She reckoned if women knew actually what was involved they would not want to go through with it.

Panellist Tim Stanley, opposed to abortion himself, asked why Professor Savage why many doctors were reluctant to perform the operation after 12 weeks (the legal limit, except in special circumstances, is 24 weeks). 聽聽

Professor Savage: 鈥淲ell doctors are not immune from these feelings of squeamishness that other people have, but they probably haven鈥檛 spent a lot of time listening to women and they鈥檝e certainly never seen women dying.

Was it not, Tim Stanley asked, because after 12 weeks you have to dismember the foetus to get it out of the womb?

Professor Savage is not one to duck difficult questions: 鈥淎fter 16 weeks you have to dismember it鈥�.

A jolt, but a turning point? Panellist Claire Fox, who believes abortion should be solely the woman鈥檚 choice, countered that all operations looked grim. 鈥淚f you showed me a picture of having my appendix out, I鈥檇 probably get sick and never go to the doctors again, or never go in a hospital鈥�. Squeamishness was not the same as morality.

But 聽Aisling Hubert tartly pointed out that one operation was a life-saving procedure, the other a life-ending one.

I felt the mood in the room had changed: I wonder if it had in our radio audience?

The Moral Maze debate often seems to turn on hard cases and there was a particularly telling interchange between panellist Anne McElvoy and the Catholic writer, and anti-abortion absolutist, Ed Condon. What about, Anne asked, the victims of rape who become pregnant. Would he see that as an exceptional case?

Ed Condon, though appalled at the crime and sympathetic to the victim, did not. 鈥淲e live in a society that holds as an objective value, human life鈥�, he said.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 allow the victims of sexual crime to execute they鈥檙e attackers. So it seems to me we鈥檙e placing a greater value on the human life of the attacker than on the child. And it seems to me that if you鈥檙e arguing for abortion, in say cases of rape or incest, you鈥檙e basically saying it鈥檚 OK to revisit the crimes of the father on the child but not on the father himself.鈥�

Time and again, we returned to the central issue of when a collection of cells becomes a human being with a right to life, at conception, at birth, or the point at which the foetus becomes viable, independent of the mother.

Panellist Giles Fraser, an Anglican priest, and witness Dr Kate Greasely, an academic who has specialised in the abortion question, were in agreement on one thing at least- that it was a gradual process, not a fixed point. He talked in biblical terms about life 鈥渜uickening鈥�; she saw what she called 鈥減ersonhood鈥� as something that 鈥渇aded in鈥�.

Giles asked: 鈥淒o you think about when personhood happens? How it happens?鈥�

Kate: I think personhood is wrapped up in psychological characteristics, most importantly self-consciousness. I don鈥檛 think that something is plausibly a person if it鈥檚 not self-conscious. But these properties themselves don鈥檛 snap into existence do they? They come about quite gradually. So that鈥檚 why I think personhood also comes about gradually. That鈥檚 very different from saying 鈥渋t鈥檚 whatever we think it is鈥�. It鈥檚 saying no, some things, like day and night, are real things, but there鈥檚 no absolute moment when the one turns into another.鈥� 聽

Just a few highlights from a passionate, complex debate. 聽When I talk about the programme, people tend to ask me 鈥渁nd what conclusion did you reach?鈥�, or 鈥渨ho won?鈥�. 聽Until now, I鈥檝e always thought that misses the point. The real value is in coming across something that makes you think about a big issue in a different way, about hearing an argument tested to destruction, about being able to weigh up competing points of view.

(Editorial note: The act contained conditions in addition to those stated in the introduction of the programme. By far the most common reason for abortion is that the pregnancy has not exceeded 24 weeks and that continuing would risk injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated).