Ms Leah Hoctor:

The second question was about the role of the medical profession. In most of the European countries where we examined their laws the reform processes moved from a highly restrictive law on abortion in the 1970s and 1980s to the laws in place today. Medical professionals in these societies were very involved with legislators and law makers in crafting these laws and advising on what would be workable and bring about a solution in these countries. Many of them were dealing with very high rates of unsafe abortion and often the law reform processes occurred because of calls from within the medical profession for change because its members were seeing such high rates of maternal deaths as a result of unsafe abortions. Usually across Europe laws on abortion in legislation or primary legal sources are also accompanied by regulations, by-laws and often medical guidelines adopted by medical professional bodies.