C. v. S., 25 February 1987.
The father of a fetus of eighteen to twenty-one weeks' gestation sought orders on his own behalf and that of the fetus prohibiting the mother and her area health authority from aborting the fetus. He claimed that the proposed abortion would violate provisions of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, which made it an offence for any person, with intent to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive, to cause it to die before it had an existence independent of its mother. The Court refused to make the orders, ruling that although a fetus between eighteen and twenty-one weeks old showed signs of movement, it was not capable of being born alive within the meaning of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929. The Court did not make a ruling on the lower court's conclusion that the father and the fetus had no standing to bring this action. The House of Lords rejected the plaintiff's petition for leave to appeal the holding of the Court of Appeal.
D000028:Abortion, Induced; D019049:Developed Countries; D005060:Europe; D005193:Family Planning Services; D005328:Fetal Viability; D005333:Fetus; D007603:Jurisprudence; D007878:Legislation as Topic; D011247:Pregnancy; D012098:Reproduction; D020458:Third-Party Consent; D006113:United Kingdom
Abortion Law; Abortion, Induced--legal aspects; Court Decision; Developed Countries; Europe; Family Planning; Fertility Control, Postconception; Fetal Viability--legal aspects; Fetus; Northern Europe; Pregnancy; Reproduction; Spousal Consent--legal aspects; United Kingdom