ISSUES
: Abortion
Chapter 2: Abortion debate
35
How Northern Ireland could be forced to
ditch its “nightmare” law
This week sees a landmark court case, as Northern Ireland’s Human Rights Commission and
Amnesty come together to try and change the “harshest criminal abortion law in Europe”.
Méabh Ritchie reports.
By Méabh Ritchie
I
f you are raped in Northern Ireland,
you can’t legally get an abortion.
If you’re a 13-year-old sex crime
victim in Northern Ireland, even
of incest, you can’t legally get an
abortion.
If you are pregnant and find out, after
a 20-week scan, that the foetus you’re
carrying has a serious abnormality
and will soon die in your womb, you
can’t legally get an abortion.
Last week the British media rightly
rallied around a report condemning
abortion laws in the Republic of
Ireland. But right here in a corner
of the UK, unlawful abortion still
carries a life sentence both for the
woman undergoing it and for anyone
assisting her.
It is only legal if a woman can prove
her life – physical or mental – is at
risk.
These strict restrictions mean that
just 23 terminations were carried
out at NHS hospitals in Northern
Ireland last year. An estimated 4,000
women were forced to leave Ireland,
north and south, to terminate their
pregnancy, with an estimated 2,000
travelling to England.
Many more women order ‘illegal’
abortion pills from sites such as
Women on Web.
But this law could be about to change
– not through politics, despite a
recent government consultation on
this issue – but through the courts.
Today, a High Court Judicial Review
will examine a case brought by
Northern Ireland’s Human Rights
Commission against the Department
of Justice.
Over three days, the commission will
make the case for a change in the law
to allow the termination of pregnancy
in circumstances of rape, incest or
complications which will result in the
death of the foetus.
‘Inequity’ in the UK
Amnesty Northern Ireland has taken
the unprecedented step of intervening
to support the commission against the
law, which it says carries the “harshest
criminal penalties in Europe”.
“It’s a dire situation,” says Amnesty’s
Grainne Teggert. “It’s inequity in the
UK.
“Politicians are beginning to change
their mindset, but that’s no good.
We need the words of politicians
to become actions and legislate for
change. Women can’t afford to wait.”
It has also become more urgent
following an English High Court judge
ruling in May 2014 that an 18-year-old
woman from Northern Ireland was not
entitled to a ‘free NHS abortion’ in an
English hospital. The case caused
huge controversy and the girl and her
mother are currently appealing the
High Court decision.
The impact of the north of Ireland’s
highly restrictive abortion law is
something that Sarah Ewart, 24, who
is also submitting evidence to the High
Court review, knows only too well.
“A living nightmare”
In October 2013, she found out 20
weeks into a much-wanted pregnancy
that her baby had anencephaly, a fatal
abnormality where the brain does not
develop and has no skull.
The only option doctors in Belfast
could offer her was continuing with
the pregnancy until the foetus died
and then inducing a painful labour.
Doctors couldn’t even give any advice
about where to seek alternative
treatment, for fear of being jailed. She
was forced to travel to London to have
the pregnancy terminated.
“I aman ordinarywomanwho suffered
a very personal family tragedy, which
the law in Northern Ireland turned into
a living nightmare,” she said.
In the midst of her ordeal, Ms Ewart,
phoned a BBC Radio Ulster show to
explain her devastating predicament,
and in doing so shone a light on the
impact of these restrictive laws.
“I was grieving, I was losing the baby
but it was something I felt passionately
about,” she told me.
Before 2013, Ms Ewart was opposed
to abortion, “but this baby I was
carrying – there was no chance of life.
This kind of situation hadn’t crossed
my mind.”
Now, she is campaigning for a change
in the law on abortion.
There is an active pro-life lobby
in Northern Ireland within both
the Catholic and Presbyterian
communities, but Ms Ewart’s story
was universally recognised as grossly
unfair.
When she visited a private clinic with
her husband to try and find out about
other options, she was confronted
by the aggressive protesters who
stand vigil outside, waving blood-red
placards of foetuses.
“Pro-life protesters were shouting all
sorts, flashing cards in my face,” she
recalls. “We were trying to get into my
granny and granddad’s car and we
couldn’t open the door.”
But after the radio interview, the
wider public has been much more
sympathetic: “Now if we’re in town or
something, people stop us, they say
they’re behind us.”
Sea change of opinion
Sarah Ewart’s experience of public
opinion appears to be backed up by
recent polling. Around 65 per cent
