When the 1967 Abortion Act was passed, it made abortion legal in certain circumstances: when two doctors had decided that continuing with the pregnancy would risk physical or mental injury to the pregnant person and their existing children and, in the case of pregnancies over 24 weeks, when two doctors believe that termination is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the mother, or if not doing so would be to risk her life, or that if the child were born it would suffer a serious disability.