Legal bid for greater abortion access in North

Pro-abortion campaigners were mounting a fresh bid today to win women in Northern Ireland greater access to abortion.

The Family Planning Association was going to the High Court in Belfast to appeal against the outcome of a judicial review last year on the provision of abortion services in the North.

The association is seeking a ruling that would force the Department of Health in Belfast to issue guidelines to doctors on exactly when an abortion can be carried out.

Termination in Northern Ireland is only legal when the mother’s life is in danger or there is serious threat to her mental of physical well-being.

About 40,000 women have been forced to travel from the North to Britain over the past 20 years for an abortion, paying around £1,000 (€1,500) each to private clinics, the FPA claims.

The British Department of Health has revealed that only four out of 8,000 Northern Ireland women who had abortions in Britain over a five-year period could legally have had the operation at home.

The FPA went to the High Court last summer seeking an order requiring health chiefs in Northern Ireland to issue guidelines on termination of pregnancy to doctors.

However Mr Justice Brian Kerr – now the Northern Ireland Lord Chief Justice - ruled that there was no onus on the British Department of Health to set out regulations for doctors on when they can legally carry out terminations.

Dr Audrey Simpson, director of the FPA in Northern Ireland, said today: “We lodged this appeal against Mr Justice Kerr’s decision because we believe the Department is failing in its statutory duties.

“By refusing to issue guidelines, the department has effectively turned a blind eye to the needs of women seeking a legal abortion in Northern Ireland.”

Dr Simpson added: “It is ludicrous to claim, as the Department does, that guidelines would be of no practical use. We know from our work with women that some who are entitled to abortion within the law in Northern Ireland have been denied it, and we have produced evidence to support the fact“.

The FPA believed, she said, that the lack of clarity around the interpretation of the law in the province and the ’chill factor’ of conscientious objection to abortion by individual medical practitioners were jointly responsible for denying women the health services they are entitled to.

Anti-abortionists insist there is a clear majority among both Catholics and Protestants against a liberalisation of the laws in Northern Ireland.

They accuse the FPA of trying to change the law “through the back door“.

The High Court proceedings are due to last up to three days.