Abortion which midwives usually worked were relatively safe. In addition, some commentators have written that, despite improved medical procedures, the period from the 1930s until legalization also saw more zealous enforcement of anti-abortion laws, and concomitantly an increasing control of abortion providers by organized crime. Soviet Russia (1919), Iceland (1935) and Sweden (1938) were among the first countries to legalize certain or all forms of abortion. In 1935 Nazi Germany, a law was passed permitting abortions for those deemed "hereditarily ill", while women considered of German stock were specifically prohibited from having abortions. Beginning in the second half of the twentieth
Abortion in the United Kingdom citizens of the UK, forbids them from having an abortion in their own home country." According to Bernadette Smyth, the leader of the Belfast-based group Precious Life which is opposed to abortion, "Women's health is not in danger. Women are not dying because they cannot get abortion." In March 2013, Northern Ireland Health Minister Jim Wells proposed an amendment "to restrict lawful abortions to NHS premises, except in cases of urgency when access to NHS premises is not possible and where no fee is paid". In response, Amnesty International asked the NI Assembly's Justice Committee to reject the full amendment,