Walter L. Neustatter

Walter Lindesay Neustätter (7 December 1903 – 6 July 1978) was a German-born British doctor, consultant psychiatrist and forensic psychiatrist.

He was the vice-president of the Medico-Legal Society, which worked with the Abortion Law Reform Association to pass the Abortion Act 1967, which decriminalised abortion in the United Kingdom. He was a founding member of the British Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Background Walter Lindesay Neustätter was born in Munich, Germany, to a German Jewish father Otto Neustätter and his Australian wife Ada Lilian Lindesay-Richardson. Walter Neustätter's aunt, Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson was a noted Australian author (she wrote under the penname "Henry Handel Richardson"). The family had a long history in medicine on both sides, his father was an MD and his maternal grandfather was also an MD. His parents divorced when he was only four years old, with Neustätter's father migrating to the United States, while his mother came to England.

Once in England, Neustätter's mother married for a second time to A. S. Neill and the two were involved in progressivist education, founding the Summerhill School together at Leiston: it was adjacent to communist politics in Britain and the School later involved in sex scandal controversies, where Neustätter's stepfather encouraged sexual activities between students among themselves and between students and teachers (inspired by the principles of Wilhelm Reich). Neustätter himself was educated from 1913 to 1921 at King Alfred's School, Hampstead, before moving on to London University and University College Hospital Medical School, qualifying as a doctor in 1929. Neustätter was opposed to any legal exception under the grounds of conscientious objection for doctors who do not wish to carry out abortions. In 1968, he was one of the founding members on the advisory panel of Pregnancy Advisory Service (PAS) at a meeting called by Alan Golding, Sara Abel and Sylvia Ponsonby, which sought to direct women about ways they could get rid of "unwanted pregnancy" in the aftermath of the passing of the Act.

Personal life Neustätter married Mary Clutton-Brook in January 1941 at Surrey and had two children. Mary's brother Guy Clutton-Brock and his wife Molly Clutton-Brock, were among the founding members of the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress.