DUP’s Arlene Foster vows to retain almost total ban on terminations – but agrees to ‘carefully consider’ court ruling on rape

Northern Ireland’s first female leader vowed to prevent the Abortion Act 1967 being extended to the region, setting up a legal clash between politicians and pro-choice campaigners in the courts.

Arlene Foster, who will take over from Peter Robinson as first minister on Monday, told the Guardian she intends to maintain the Democratic Unionist party’s opposition to any reform of the province’s notoriously strict abortion laws.

After being elected DUP leader unopposed, Foster told the Guardian: “I would not want abortion to be as freely available here as it is in England and don’t support the extension of the 1967 act.”

But she conceded the Northern Ireland executive, which she will co-lead with Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, will have to carefully consider a landmark judgment in which the high court ruled that denying abortions to women who had become pregnant through rape was a breach of British and European human rights laws.

Her remarks are published a day after the Guardian reported that doctors, nurses and midwives said they are operating in a “climate of fear”, worried about the threat of imprisonment if they offer advice to women seeking an abortion. Abortions in Northern Ireland are only available to women and girls where their life or health is in grave danger; only 23 were carried out in 2013-14.



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Several women told the Guardian of their experiences in trying to seek an abortion. Women and girls seeking abortions have to travel to England and pay to obtain them on the NHS. Or they can procure pills online illegally that induce a termination if they are less than nine weeks pregnant.

Despite her statement in defence of the existing law, Foster’s acknowledgement of the November court ruling suggests politicians in Northern Ireland are also preparing for judicial decisions that would force the Stormont assembly’s hand and potentially introduce some liberalisation.



The judge in the November case, Mr Justice Horner, balked at imposing changes that could have led to limited terminations taking place in the region’s hospitals following his ruling. His decision has put the onus on the Northern Ireland assembly to take on board his judgment. At present, there is no legal compunction on Stormont’s politicians to change the law.

Commenting on the ruling, Foster said: “It is impossible not to be moved by some couples’ heartbreaking experiences. Many of the cases are extremely complex, and increasingly so as medical practice advances. Along with executive colleagues I will be taking time to consider carefully Mr Justice Horner’s judgment.”

An alliance of evangelical Protestants, the Catholic church and a majority of the assembly’s politicians has ensured that Northern Ireland remains excluded from the legislation.

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Foster declined to answer specific questions on whether she would accept limited exceptions to the near-total ban on abortion. She would not say whether she would support – as some have campaigned for – exceptions to be introduced for women who became pregnant through rape or incest, and those whose baby had fatal foetal abnormalities.

Foster pointed out that terminations did take place in certain circumstances and expressed sympathy for women with crisis pregnancies.

“I recognise this is a deeply personal issue for people, which deserves to be treated with the utmost sensitivity and compassion. The legal position in Northern Ireland is often misunderstood, and many don’t appreciate it can permit abortion when the woman’s physical or mental health is affected,” the DUP leader added.

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The Stormont assembly has the lowest level of female representatives out of the devolved parliaments, and only a fifth of members supports a relaxation of the near-total ban on abortions.

Last year one of Foster’s DUP colleagues, Alastair Ross, presented an amendment on behalf of the assembly’s justice committee that would have further tightened the ban. It would have banned private clinics such as Marie Stopes from offering non-medical terminations for women pregnant up to nine weeks. The combined votes of Sinn Féin, the Alliance party, the Greens and liberal unionist party N21 vetoed the proposal.

Earlier in 2015 Sinn Féin changed its policy to support abortions in both parts of Ireland in cases of fatal foetal abnormality. Its nationalist rival, the SDLP, is linked to the Labour party in the Republic through the Socialist International but has a long record of opposing abortion reform in Northern Ireland.

Even if more abortions were allowed in its hospitals – following legal action that could go all the way up to the European court of human rights at Strasbourg – veteran feminists and pro-choice campaigners warn this could lead to a new legal minefield.

Eileen Calder, co-founder of the Rape Crisis and Sexual Abuse Centre in Belfast, said that if abortion were permitted on the grounds of rape it could lead to situations where innocent men faced false rape allegations.

“I think it is totally wrong to say that perhaps we should allow for terminations on the grounds of rape only,” she said. “Many women in unwanted and crisis pregnancies might go to their GP or local hospital and say they were raped and demand an abortion in those circumstances.

“In these cases the onus would be on medics to then report a crime to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which in turn could lead to innocent men who get women pregnant after consensual sex being arrested, questioned and possibly charged over a crime they did not commit.”

Accusing the Northern Ireland assembly of “political cowardice”, Calder added that “only the extension of the 1967 act and full equal rights for women like they enjoy in the rest of the UK” was the way forward.