Abortionist Vera Drake finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain--a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.

Vera Drake is a selfless woman who is completely devoted to, and loved by, her working class family. She spends her days doting on them and caring for her sick neighbor and elderly mother. However, she also secretly visits women and helps them induce miscarriages for unwanted pregnancies. While the practice itself was illegal in 1950s England, Vera sees herself as simply helping women in need, and always does so with a smile and kind words of encouragement. When the authorities finally find her out, Vera's world and family life rapidly unravel.—Sujit R. Varma

When a young girl barely 18 goes to hospital after one of Veras' abortions she comes close to death & the woman who is the one who is the FIXER & makes the abortion money gives police Vera's name & history which leads to her arrest conviction & 2 year plus sentence We are not given Ingo to Vera's age upon sentencing but at arrest she tells police she has been married 27 years I watched this film twice & felt Vera did not live out her 2 year prison sentence.

In 1950, in London, Vera Drake is a simple woman of a low-class but happy family. She works cleaning upper-class houses; her beloved husband is a mechanic and works with his brother in a repair shop; her son is a tailor; and her daughter tests and packs electric lamps. The helpful Vera is a very good and cooperative woman, helping her sick mother, a handicapped neighbor and whoever needs her. She also induces miscarriages in women who do not want to have children--without any remuneration. When a woman whose husband is serving overseas falls pregnant as the result of an affair has complications with her intervention and goes to the hospital, the police investigate the occurrence, and the world--and the family--of Vera fall apart with this tragedy.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil