Call the Midwife

It was passed in 1967, coming into effect at the end of April 1968 - it took a year to come into effect. I have no idea if anyone was arrested and imprisoned in that year, but I doubt it because by that time the police were rarely involved and like last night reluctant to turn the woman having the abortion into a criminal. Obviously before 1821 you could be hanged, although cases were always rare. After that it was transportation until that stopped and then prison. There is a buffer to this act, The Infant Life Preservation Act - this acted to stop people killing a child during actual labour and a woman was prosecuted in 2017 for this and it also reviews the time limit, currently 28 weeks. The death penalty for this was retained but rarely used until the death penalty was abolished. However high abortion rates were in the past, infanticide rates were probably higher which is another reason for the time limit to register births and deaths was brought in and why midwives had to send in their paperwork so that a registrar could be on the look out for people not turning up to register a birth. You can still be fined for failing to register a birth. In some countries, I think it was the case in Ireland, people had months to register a birth, possibly up to six months or longer from birth. It is unknown therefore how many babies simply 'died at birth or failed to thrive' during that period and it is believed that infanticide was probably used instead of abortion on a very large scale. It was another reason why there was a big push to get women into hospital for their deliveries and why unregistered midwives could be prosecuted. Nobody would suggest that the good sister at Nonatus would be involved in such a thing, but it was common enough for unregistered midwives to be involved in deliveries, infanticide and abortions. Social historians have suggested that this may account for the extremely high infant mortality rates post Industrial Revolution and that it is not just the living conditions. Well it is but not in the same way.

The 67 Act says that two doctors have to agree that carrying on with the pregnancy would be more dangerous to a woman's health; however even Steel who brought the act knew that two doctors that agreed with abortion would always be able to say this, as it is always more dangerous to carry a pregnancy to term and go through labour than it is to terminate a pregnancy before 28 weeks. Even today doctors would have to agree to this because it is a scientific and statistical fact.

Yes and as we saw, they weren't very interested in prosecuting her by that time in history. It did depend on who was in charge and what their personal feelings were and a court case would have been shameful even if you just ended up being fined. It would still have been the kind of thing the tabloids got a hold of. .

They were not £10 notes in the book,but 10 shilling notes.

Still a lot ,when some people were probably only earning single figures per week.

Only watched this last night and I was struck by what a fine actress Annette Crosbie is.

Yes, me too! So the stiff and starchy doctor's receptionist has a heart after all. Apart from the silliness about the "beach" it was a good episode.

Loved them chasing the cat out of the sand

I don't know where that came from vicky. There was quite a big feature in the Radio Times maybe a couple of months ago (maybe around the time series began again) which said they get through something like 60 to 70 newborns each series.