PRESS RELEASE: IMMEDIATE RELEASE SECRETARY OF STATE TO DIRECT DEPT. OF HEALTH COMMISSIONING OF ABORTION SERVICES IN NI

Begins: Alliance for Choice (AFC) welcome with relief, the news that Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (SOSNI), Brandon Lewis will direct the Department of Health NI to commission a CEDAW compliant abortion service by March 2022, mandating free, safe and legal access to everyone in NI who needs it.

Naomi Connor commented,

‘Finally, long overdue abortion services can take their place within healthcare in Northern Ireland. We remain hopeful that people will no longer have to endure the degradation of forced travel to England or navigating a precarious and limited service.’

AFC recognise the weight of today’s intervention, but Westminster must honour the SOSNI’s obligation to step in, as the state party responsible for our rights. Stormont’s democratic dysfunction has failed to deliver on the 2019 NI Executive Formation Act, irrespective of the trauma of forced travel and human rights breaches. AFC urges the Department of Health to ensure the commissioned services proceed unimpeded and with urgency. We also welcome his call to the DoH for immediate funding support for interim provision of early medical abortion, which continues to be precarious.

Ms Connor continued

‘Each passing day ignores the real women and pregnant people who need clear pathways to adequate abortion healthcare. Further delays and obstruction to abortion services is never acceptable to the one in three of us who require this type of healthcare.’

Emma Campbell said, ‘Whilst we now breathe a sigh of relief, we remain disappointed that whole communities are failed by their leaders on this issue. We can no longer ignore that almost 2,000 abortion seekers sought treatment in the last year from across our population. This announcement doesn’t ask those who disagree with abortion to change, they still don’t have to have one. Therefore we request respect for those who do and allow them to access healthcare in peace and dignity.’

We are vigilant to the presence of rogue pregnancy clinics and groups intent on harassing women using abortion healthcare facilities. It is therefore critical that the government should act swiftly to ensure that women and pregnant people are free from anti-choice harassment and abuse. We also would like to thank all of the outstanding medical staff in NI and England who continued to provide abortion care to us all despite the difficulties and those stand-out local leaders who have stood by us from across the political spectrum.

Contact:

AFC Co-Convenors,

Emma Campbell 07894063965

Naomi Connor 07505 096576

ENDS

NOTES for EDITORS:

The Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 introduced in March 2020 are designed to implement the recommendations contained in paragraphs 85 and 86 of the CEDAW Report of the inquiry concerning the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland under article 8 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Report), this includes provision for abortion in cases of severe foetal impairment. These regulations need to be implemented in full so that no pregnant person is forced to travel to England to access basic healthcare.
The Committee assesses the gravity of the violations in NI in light of the suffering experienced by women and girls who carry pregnancies to full term against their will due to the current restrictive legal regime on abortion.
The CEDAW Report can be found here https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22693&LangID=E
Matters relating to health and justice provisions, both of which are within devolved competence, and the incompatibility with CEDAW could have been remedied by the NI Assembly. In the absence of this however under the Good Friday Agreement (Paragraph 33(b) of Strand 1) the Westminster Parliament is to “legislate as necessary” to ensure the UK’s human rights and other international obligations are met for NI.
Primary legislation was consequently passed in Westminster. Section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 repealed sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (which criminalised abortions in NI). It also placed the Secretary of State under a legal obligation to ensure that the framework under paragraphs 85 and 86 of the CEDAW report are implemented, including a continuous and ongoing duty to make changes to NI law through secondary law Regulations to ensure such implementation.
The Secretary of State consequently introduced The Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020. Regulation 7 provides for termination of pregnancy in cases of “Severe fetal impairment or fatal fetal abnormality.” This is consistent with what is required by the CEDAW framework and primary legislation.
Strictly speaking the primary legislation, in repealing the provisions of the 1861 Act, dealt with decriminalisation. However, Regulation 11 introduces an element of re-criminalisation for medical professionals who perform a termination deemed to be outside the terms of the Regulations. This re-criminalisation was not recommended by CEDAW. When medical professionals conduct procedures outside of the legal framework, such issues are usually dealt with administratively or through the application of professional standards, rather than through creating a criminal offence. Re-criminalisation may constitute a chill factor to providing services to which there are entitlements, in particular in a challenge to a precise diagnosis relating to severe impairment or FFA.
In relation the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) Article 8 covers the ‘right to respect for private and family life’ and restrictions on the same must be ‘in accordance with the law’. This is the principle of ‘legal certainty’ which has been consistently held by the European Court of Human Rights to apply to abortion services. Put simply this means when a person has a right to an abortion in law there must be a clear way of accessing that service in practice.

Department of Health NI figures on abortion

Words are not enough.

Alliance for Choice cautiously welcome the pressure from MPs during this week’s Parliamentary Questions and the announcement of the NIHRC action, led to Robin Walker, Minister for Northern Ireland, advising that the government are ‘considering further legislative action at Westminster’ and ‘stand ready to act’ if the Northern Ireland does not take action to commission services in line with the Regulations passed in April 2020.

However the time for ‘standing’ has long passed and the time for action is now.

Statements of intent fall short given that despite the decriminalisation of abortion in NI in October 2019, followed by the NI Abortion Regulatory Framework in April 2020, the abortion services we need and require and nowhere near being realised. We need action and we need it now.

Recent figures, including the Department of Health, have shown that alarmingly, too many women and pregnant people are not receiving the local abortion healthcare they are entitled to, with some forced to travel to England to access services. This is compounded by the fact we are in the third wave of a pandemic and risk of contagion from variant strains of the COVID-19 virus has increased significantly.

Figures released this week from a range of sources including the Department of Health show:

19 people from the South Eastern Trust area have been denied local early medical abortion provision due to the withdrawal of those services
During the suspension of the early medical abortion service in Northern Trust area 88 women called the Central Access Point and requested abortion services with no local services to refer those people two
One international on-line provider alone has provided abortion pills for 22 women from the South Eastern Trust from beginning to mid January that they should be receiving locally through their Health Trust
One health professional from one Health Trust has advised that they have had to refer 11 people over a ten week gestation ‘elsewhere’ for the abortion healthcare they require.
Recent Freedom of Information requests obtained by Alliance for Choice have confirmed that 100s of women and pregnant people from across Northern Ireland are still being forced to travel England and seek abortions on line
Statistics released from the Department of Health show that there has been a decrease in the number of people in local health trusts who have received local care in respect of serious foetal anomaly.

For each day that passes more and more women and pregnant people are being denied the abortion healthcare they require in NI.

The time for the Minister and Secretary of State to act is NOW before any more women are failed, put at risk or pushed down the inhumane road of reproductive coercion.

The British-Irish InterGovernmental Conference

Emma Campbell, Co-Chair of Alliance for Choice said:

“We are horrified that children as young as 12 are still being forced to travel to access medical services. This is indicative of the callousness with which the DUP and others blocking change in the defunct NI Assembly continue to treat us. We have reached a point where the stance of those unwilling to change is not supported by their voters or by any health or human rights bodies. More importantly, the stigma it creates is recognised as harming the physical and mental wellbeing of abortion seekers and their families. ”

Northern Ireland Office leak reveals more than briefing notes

Alliance for Choice have noted that neither the Supreme Court nor CEDAW are satisfied that these arrangements in any way relieve Westminster from their duty to act as noted in the summary of the CEDAW report in February this year.

Alliance for Choice on Secretary of State Northern Ireland's response to parliamentary question on abortion from Stella Creasy MP.

Alliance for Choice were pleased to see the issue of abortion raised in Parliamentary Questions today by Labour MP Stella Creasy. However we were extremely disappointed with the response from Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley.

Co-Chair Emma Campbell said, “We know from a number of opinion polls, and academic research such as the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey and the Abortion as a Workplace issue report, that the majority of people in Northern Ireland want to see criminal sanctions removed from abortion.”

The situation in Northern Ireland constitutes violence against women - CEDAW Inquiry

File 02-10-2017, 15 28 13.jpeg — CEDAW Finds Human Rights Breaches by UK Government

Report on inquiry welcomed by Alliance for Choice

The UK violates the rights of women in Northern Ireland by unduly restricting their access to abortion, a UN expert committee has found.

In a report published today, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) says thousands of women and girls in Northern Ireland are subjected to grave and systematic violations of rights through being compelled to either travel outside Northern Ireland to procure a legal abortion or to carry their pregnancy to term.