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Join us for a stimulating conversation between Professor Sally Sheldon and Rachel Arkell as they discuss Sally’s notable career in UK abortion law, the longevity of her research and the role academics can have in legal reform.
Since publishing her ground-breaking monograph Beyond-Control: Medical Power and Abortion Law, Professor Sally Sheldon has become one of the leading legal researchers writing on the history of Abortion Law in the UK. Throughout her career she has expanded her historical approach to the law, publishing the first comprehensive “biography” of the Abortion Act (1967). She joined the largest research project on Abortion in the UK – the SACHA Study - as part of a wide-reaching multi-disciplinary team. And she was previously a trustee of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the UK’s leading independent abortion provider.
A common thread throughout Sally’s writing has been to recognise abortion as healthcare, emphasising the need to remove the procedure from the criminal law. Currently terminations of pregnancy are governed by the Abortion Act 1967, which carved out a limited number of ‘exceptional situations’ where abortion is permitted with the approval of two doctors. Any procedures falling outside these conditions are prosecutable under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, where both pregnant people and their doctors can face imprisonment. Most recently, Sally co-authored an extremely compelling and empathetic commentary on the recent significant rise in the number of women investigated for illegal abortion in England (increasing to 11 in 2021 from 2 in 2018) with Dr Jonathan Lord, Medical Director of MSI Reproductive Choices and NHS Consultant Gynaecologist.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Sally will discuss:
Her career in abortion law.
The longevity and enduring urgency of abortion research.
How continuity and change in abortion law could be recorded through biography and using other mixed-methods research.
The role of academic research in influencing policy and law.
Sally, who is currently a Professor of Law at the University of Bristol will be in conversation with Rachel Arkell, the newest member of the Broadly Conceived Team. Rachel is a PhD Researcher working on her SeNSS (ESRC) funded project ‘Communicating Risk to (potentially) Pregnant Women post- Montgomery: A socio-legal exploration’ under the expert supervision of Sally herself. Her project explores how HCPs navigate competing interests in the case of sodium valproate, a highly effective anti-seizure medication which poses risk to foetal development if taken during pregnancy.
This session will be of interest to anyone with an interest in abortion, legal reform and the possibilities of research influencing policy and law.
To attend this meeting, please sign-up to the Broadly Conceived mailing list. Event links will be sent to subscribers closer to the time.