Morality Politics in the United Kingdom: Trapped between Left and Right

Abstract

As a secular society with a long-standing liberal tradition, the UK is often considered to be among the most permissive countries on morality issues.¹ This view of the UK² often refers to the mid- to late 1960s known as a ‘permissive’ period where several forms of social and moral regulation underwent a substantial liberalization including capital punishment, censorship, divorce regulation and the decriminalization of homosexual relations (Richards 1970; Durham 1991; Studlar 1996). Most important here, the 1967 Abortion Act was one of the most permissive abortion laws at the time — although it did not give women a right to abortion on request as, for instance, Denmark did in 1973.