Looks at Barbados's experience of abortion law reform undertaken in the 1980s. The movement was led by then Cabinet Minister and lawyer Billie Miller. Documents the nuances, important moments, key strategies and major players in the reform movement, and highlights the critical role that Miller played in getting the Medical Termination Act passed in 1983. Background information on the situation of Barbadian women and the nature of parliamentary governance at that time is also addressed in order to give context to the politics surrounding the issue.
Francis Humberston Mackenzie of Seaforth (1754-1815) was a Highland proprietor in what has become known as 'The First Phase of Clearance', was governor of Barbados (1801-6) in the sensitive period immediately before the abolition of the British slave trade and was himself a plantation owner in Berbice (Guiana). It is suggested that his concern for his Highland small tenants was paralleled by his ambition in Barbados to make the killing of a slave by a white a capital offence, by his attempts to give free coloureds the right to testify against whites and by his aim to provide good conditions for his own enslaved labourers in Berbice.
