British Section of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life

"Joanna Jepson, the Church of England curate who mounted a legal challenge to the late abortion of a foetus will a cleft lip and palate, has agreed to a police request to postpone her High Court action," Elizabeth Day reported in the Sunday Telegraph (9 May 04). "A judicial review, due to start on May 24, has been delayed indefinitely under pressure from West Mercia Police, who have re-opened a criminal investigation into the case."

The Rev. Joanna's legal challenge to official policy on up-to-birth abortion for any disability, however slight, attracted support from the Archbishop of Canterbury and from the general public, though not from Lord Steel (Sunday Telegraph, 7th December 2003), sponsor of the Abortion Act. Mr. Frank Doran MP, at the time of the 1990 amendments to the 1967 Act, accused two lawyers of "scaremongering" for warning that foetuses with cleft palates would be at risk of late termination. He has now called for the law to be re-examined. The Rev. Joanna was born with a facial abnormality, which was later corrected.