The DUP, under leader Arlene Foster, has repeatedly refused proposals to decriminalise abortion in Northern Ireland

Alabama’s ‘draconian’ blanket ban on abortion is not as restrictive as laws affecting women in parts of the UK, campaigners have highlighted.

There was worldwide condemnation earlier this week when a group of 25 male politicians placed a near-total ban on pregnancy termination in the US state.

Activists in the UK have pointed out that women in Northern Ireland face even harsher laws, including life in jail for having a termination.

They have accused the Westminster government of being complicit in these ‘human rights abuses,’ which mean women must travel to England for a termination, buy illegal abortion pills online or continue with an unwanted pregnancy.




Mara Clarke from the London-based Abortion Support Network said: ‘People have been having a very visceral reaction to what is happening in Alabama but it is happening here in the UK.

‘For five decades, the women of Northern Ireland have been suffering through appalling legislation.

‘There is a part of the United Kingdom that is treating its women like second-class citizens.’

The UK’s Abortion Act 1967, which allows for lawful abortions across Great Britain up to 24 weeks into pregnancy – and beyond in some circumstances – was never applied in Northern Ireland.

Terminations therefore are currently illegal in all but exceptional medical or mental health circumstances.

There is no provision for terminations to be legally carried out on the grounds of rape, incest or foetal abnormality.

People outside a pro-choice rally in Belfast, Northern Ireland (Picture: PA)

Last year just 12 abortions took place within Northern Ireland.

At the same time, 28 women a week travelled to England for a termination while hundreds of others were forced to buy safe, but illegal, pills over the internet.

On Tuesday, senators in Alabama passed a similar bill that made termination after the detection of a heartbeat a crime.

Women seeking or undergoing an abortion would not be punished but doctors face up to 99 years in jail.

In Northern Ireland, women, their doctors or anyone who even knows about the situation faces a jail term.

According to the Victorian 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, that can be life in prison.

Prosecutions still happen and an unnamed mother is currently fighting in the courts after she bought abortion pills online for her 15-year-old daughter.

Emma Campbell from pro-choice organisation, Alliance for Choice, said there was a worrying ‘pushback’ against women and their right to choose what happens to their own bodies.

She said: ‘It’s a human rights issue because if a woman can’t control her fertility, it has an impact on so many things.

‘It impacts her economic situation, how much she can help the family she may already have and her educational prospects.

‘Deciding if and when to become pregnant is a huge factor in equality and without being able to control your body or your destiny takes you way back to the starting blocks.



‘It is no surprise that many places that have less gender equality also have the strictest abortion laws.

‘There is a very clear global pushback right now and it’s a strategy against what is perceived to be too much progression for women.’

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Westminster has always said the issue is one for the devolved government in Northern Ireland.

But an alliance of fundamentalist Protestant Christians, the Catholic Church and the Democratic Unionist Party has continually worked to block moves towards reforming strict laws in the country.

Polls suggest two-thirds of voters would actually support a law change and make terminations legal.

Within the Northern Ireland Assembly, the DUP have always used a legal mechanism known as the petition of concern as an effective veto.

The Assembly has not been functional for the last two years after the power-sharing agreement between Sinn Fein and the DUP collapsed.

However, Prime Minister Theresa May – who relies on the DUP to prop up her minority Tory government – has been reluctant to step in.

Recent legislation proposed by Labour MP Stella Creasy was thwarted by the Tories ‘so as not to cause problems with the DUP.’

Protesters in Alabama outside the Senate, which voted overwhelmingly to ban terminations earlier this week (Picture: AP)

The DUP’s Paul Givan said earlier this month that Great Britain had the wrong policy on abortion, which ‘had resulted in over eight million deaths of unborn children.’

He added that 100,000 people were alive in Northern Ireland because of their stance.

Since 1968, around 80,000 women have travelled to England to have a termination.

In 2017, Westminster did abolish charges for women from Northern Ireland getting an NHS abortion in England.


Travel and accommodation costs are available if women are on benefits or earn less than £15,300.

Ms Clarke pointed out there were still practical challenges in travelling, especially for the poorest, most vulnerable and those in rural areas.

Abortion Support Network has helped fund women who are struggling but said there were still others who had resorted to extreme self-harm in order to provoke a miscarriage.

Campaigners say that far from being the ‘sexually careless’ as portrayed by pro-life groups, it is women from all walks of life who are affected.

Half had their contraception fail, half were already parents while last year the oldest was in her 50s and the youngest just 12.

Prime Minister Theresa May relies on the 10 DUP MPs to prop up her minority Conservative government (Picture: Reuters)

The United Nations have said the restrictive abortion laws are in breach of the UK’s international human rights legislations.

And abortion providers and human rights charities have called for Westminster to tackle the inequality faced by hundreds of thousands of women.

Advocacy and Public Affairs Advisor at Marie Stopes UK, Franki Appleton, said: ‘The UK government is actively failing its human rights obligations in Northern Ireland with a Victorian law that criminalises both women and clinicians.

‘As an abortion care charity that cares for women from Northern Ireland, we see first-hand the suffering these restrictions cause.’

Last May, citizens in the Republic of Ireland voted overwhelmingly to allow abortion and there is increasing pressure for women across the border to have the same rights.

But it comes as 28 American states have begun to roll back women’s rights, emboldened by Donald Trump’s socially conservative regime.


Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland campaign manager, Grainne Teggart, said: ‘The UK Government’s silence on the situation in Northern Ireland is putting the UK in the same camp as those US states pushing women’s reproductive health back into the dark ages.

‘The roll-back on reproductive rights in the US is happening at a terrifyingly rapid rate.

‘We should be outraged by this, but let’s also remember that in the UK we’re no better – women in Northern Ireland are subjected to one of the most severe abortion bans in the world which also carries criminal penalties of up to life imprisonment.’