Abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland where about 70 to 80 abortions happen legally and is only allowed to happen under rare conditions. According to the Guardian UK,
Some 50,000 Northern Irish women have had to come to England for abortions, costing about £2,500 each, while poorer women bear unwanted children or use back-street methods: over 10% of GPs admit to dealing with the aftermath of amateur abortions.
The political nature of abortion in Northern Ireland has led to crucial reforms being left out of today's debate in Parliment. The 1967 law that legalized abortion in the UK is full of caveats. It reads,
Here's the case for reform: the 1967 abortion law casts women as too morally unreliable to decide if they should become mothers. Two doctors must agree that a pregnancy can be terminated; women must plead psychological cause and attend a registered clinic. All that adds to cruel delays: some women still wait six weeks.Doctors are not making a medical diagnosis, but giving or withholding their moral blessing. Not surprisingly, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists wants an end to this archaic hypocrisy. In these days of "choice" and "empowerment" for patients, doctors are not priests. How odd that women should be morally incapable of making this most important decision and yet might be compelled against their will to become mothers - presumably morally incompetent ones.
To make sure that the women in Northern Ireland can't have any access to abortion whatsoever, the President added a "pro-life amendment" that essentially banned abortion in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, they have canned debate on this topic in the UK due to the potential that it will threaten and therefore increase tension between Northern Ireland and England.
Activists that believe women have human rights and should have fair access to controlling what happens to their bodies and a full choice of reproductive rights will be protesting in front of Parliament today as they attempt to leave this crucial reform off the debate floor. These are the types of things I fear for if McCain/Palin end up in office. Will we too be fighting for our reproductive rights? *shudder to think*
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I will be at the protest today! Upon coming to England (I'm American, studying here), I was told that abortion wasn't as divisive an issue as it was in the U.S. But as I learn more, the UK has their own problems surrounding choice and reproductive justice for women. I'll be out there in front of parliament thinking those same thoughts, Samhita...As if it can't be said enough, Mccain/Palin, no way, no how.
Thanks so much for covering this story! We need every scrap of publicity we can get to give us any chance of accessing free, safe, legal abortion here in Northern Ireland in my lifetime. Things are not looking good for this attempt to change the law, and the current political situation in both Northern Ireland and the UK as a whole means that this is likely to be our last chance for a very long time.
One thing that needs to be pointed out wherever possible is that the idea that reforming our law (made in 1860!) would harm our peace process, or 'increase tension between Northern Ireland and England' as you've put it, is good old fashioned bullshit, or 'bollocks' as we call it over here! This is the UK government's way of persuading well-meaning but gutless British MPs not to vote for anything which would upset the most fundamentalist of our local politicians, whose support the UK Labour government needs in order to push through its own pet projects. This is revolting to watch, and it's even more nauseating every time they tell us that it's for the peace process, it's for our own good. I won't go into all the ins and outs of how ridiculous this is here (it could fill a book!) but please don't let anyone tell you that the Troubles will start up again if women here have access to abortion. This is just not true.
Just read this on the BBC.
Can you clarify your first sentence, Samhita? Is it illegal with exceptions, or what? I'm from the US and not familiar with abortion laws in the UK.
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