A couple forced by Northern Ireland’s strict abortion laws to go through 22 weeks of a pregnancy despite knowing that their son would be stillborn have attacked the “cowardly” decision by two political parties to maintain their draconian stance on terminating pregnancies.

The Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP) aligned itself with the Democratic Unionist party in defeating an amendment to the justice bill last week that would have made abortion legal for women suffering from fatal foetal abnormalities.

Gerry Edwards, whose wife, Gaye, was unable to obtain a termination 15 years ago in Belfast, criticised the decision to defeat the proposal and said the current position was a violation of international human rights.

Edwards said it would prevent women suffering from syndromes such as anencephaly, where a major portion of the skull and brain is missing as an embryo develops, from having an abortion.

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“I had always admired the SDLP for coming from a tradition of civil rights and human rights, especially during the Troubles,” he said. “But their position on this issue is a denial of international human rights, ignoring the judgment made back in November in their own courts that denying people like us the right to a termination was abusing our human rights.

“You can only conclude that their decision was an act of cowardice as they were afraid of so-called pro-life groups, which had warned them of electoral consequences if they voted for the amendment. It is in fact both cowardly and barbaric, because the SDLP and DUP voted for the status quo where women in Northern Ireland cannot terminate a non-viable pregnancy.”

The Dublin-based insurance broker said the DUP had acted against the views of a majority of unionists. “The DUP are doing a disservice to unionist people, who in general want to see a more humane approach to abortion laws,” he said.

It is 15 years this month since the stillbirth of the couple’s son, Joshua, when Gerry and Gaye were “medical refugees” from the Irish Republic.

“We knew when Gaye was pregnant that if we stayed in the south, she would have been forced by a hospital to go the full term of up to 38 or 40 weeks. So we decided to head north and were accepted by the Royal Victoria hospital, where the delivery could be induced after 22 weeks. By this stage, Gaye had had three different scans, all confirming [that] our son would be born dead due to anencephaly.

“It was hardly an ideal situation either, but at least the RVH staff treated us with the utmost kindness and concern. Even after Joshua was born dead and cremated, we found out that a pathologist at the hospital even went with him to Roselawn cemetery in Belfast for the cremation. But it was cruel that we did not have the option of a termination north or south on the island at the time.”

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On the 59-40 vote in the Stormont assembly last Wednesday, which scuppered any chance of terminations in cases such as theirs, Edwards said: “We commend Trevor Lunn and Stewart Dickinson from the Alliance party for putting the amendment forward in the first place and to all those MLAs [members of the legislative assembly] who voted in favour of reform. It is just so disappointing that the two other parties, the SDLP and DUP, voted to maintain this cruel and anti-human rights status quo.”

At present, under a 19th-century law, medical teams in Northern Ireland could be sentenced to life in prison for carrying out abortions even under these circumstances. Unlike the rest of the UK, the 1967 Abortion Act has never applied to Northern Ireland, and since devolution was restored, Stormont has resisted any attempt to relax the near-total ban on terminations in local hospitals.

In November, a ruling by Mr Justice Horner at the high court in Belfast found that the near-total ban violated the human rights of women, including those suffering from fatal foetal abnormalities, as well as rape victims made pregnant through sexual crimes.