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Wellcome Library

Bourne Abortion Case


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0120 GC/150

Held at: Wellcome Library

Title: Bourne Abortion Case

Date(s): 1938-1993

Level of description: Collection (fonds)

Extent: 1 file

Name of creator(s): Depositor

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

The Bourne Abortion Case was a precedent-forming case in 1938, in which Dr Aleck Bourne was tried for performing an abortion on a 14 year old girl who had been made pregnant by rape. Bourne's acquittal liberalised England's abortion laws, establishing psychiatric grounds as a permissible medical reason for abortion. The case is central to these studies to the legal attitude to abortion.

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Copies of papers relating to the Bourne Abortion Case and articles by Aleck Bourne's daughter and grandson, 1938-1993.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English

System of arrangement:

Given to the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre by Mrs Joan Ostry, Bourne's daughter, May 1993.

Conditions governing access:

The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Photocopies/photographs/microfilm are supplied for private research only at the Archivist's discretion. Please note that material may be unsuitable for copying on conservation grounds, and that photographs cannot be photocopied in any circumstances. Readers are restricted to 100 photocopies in twelve months. Researchers who wish to publish material must seek copyright permission from the copyright owner.

Finding aids:

Detailed catalogue

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Accruals:

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

ALLIED MATERIALS

Related material:

SA/ALR, SA/FPA.

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Archivist's note: Copied from the Wellcome Library catalogue by Sarah Drewery.

Rules or conventions: General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal Place and Corporate Names 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: Mar 2009.


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Abortion | Birth control | Family planning
Abortion, legal | Abortion, induced | Obstetric surgical procedures | Surgical procedures, operative | Surgery | Medical sciences
Legal decisions | Legal procedure | Administration of justice
Medical ethics | Medical profession | Medical sciences

Personal names

Corporate names

Places