Laws that require two doctors to approve an abortion should be dropped to allow women complete control over their family planning, a leading pregnancy advice charity said yesterday.

The British Pregnancy and Advisory Service, which handles 50,000 terminations a year, is demanding legal reforms to allow abortion on demand as a “responsible back-up” to contraception. The abortion debate has concentrated on the upper limit at which foetuses can be aborted, but the new demands focus on the early stages of pregnancy.

Forty years after Lord Steel of Aikwood heralded the age of legalised abortions with his 1967 Act, the advisory service maintains that it is now time for the few remaining restrictions to be relaxed.

Chief among the demands is for an end to the “frankly arcane” rule that requires two doctors to approve an abortion. Abortions should also be made easier by allowing nurses rather than doctors to prescribe the abortion pill to women within the first nine weeks.

The call, at a time of concern about teenage pregnancy, will increase concerns that women will turn to abortion instead of contraception. Research in New Zealand this year showed that women who had abortions suffered twice the level of mental health problems and three times the risk of serious depression as other women. Nevertheless, having sex without repercussions is a right that should not be complicated by unwanted children, Ann Furedi, chief executive of the advisory service, said.

She is urging MPs to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1967 law by updating the legislation. Ms Furedi was speaking at the publication of a poll commissioned by the advisory service and carried out by Ipsos MORI, showing that 59 per cent of people believe that “abortion should be made legally available for all who want it”. By comparison, 27 per cent were against on-demand abortions.

Tony Kerridge, of Marie Stopes International, which arranges 60,000 abortions in Britain each year, said that his organisation would go even further by urging MPs to allow nurses to carry out simple surgical abortions.

The Department of Health said that it had no plans to change any legislation relating to abortion.

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