In revolutionary times, it is instructive to examine the penal codes that revolutionary regimes produce. In 1920, following the Russian Revolution, abortion was made legal. Three years earlier, in 1917, according to Sheila Fitzpatrick, a historian of Soviet Russia, “suicide was no longer a crime as it had been before 1917".
Our current regime in England and Wales last month voted at Third Reading in favour of Kim Leadbeater's Bill to legalise assisted suicide, and in the same week also voted to decriminalise abortion, at least as far as the mother is concerned. The votes signalled that this is a revolutionary government with a vast, if fragile, majority. It is worth noting that the revised Soviet legal code of 1922 outlawed assisting or coercing a minor or dependant to commit suicide.
