Britain’s 40-year-old abortion law flouts the legal principles that underpin modern medical practice, 85 academic lawyers and ethicists say today. In a letter to The Times they urge MPs to remove the “qualifying conditions” on abortion that require women to obtain signed permission from two doctors, calling it “an anomaly”. Modern medical practice makes clear that individuals are entitled to make their own healthcare decisions, even if they appear wrong or irrational to others, they say, writes Rosemary Bennett, Social Affairs Correspondent of The Times