Northern Ireland's Government Issues First Document Outlining Abortion Rules

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology;  Pregnancy / Obstetrics
Article Date: 25 Mar 2009 - 7:00 PDT

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Northern Ireland's health department on Friday for the first time released legal guidelines for when doctors can perform abortions, the AP/Google.com reports. The guidelines state that abortion is permitted "to preserve the life of the woman" or when a doctor determines that the pregnancy would pose "a risk of real and serious adverse effect on [a woman's] physical or mental health." Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that did not recognize a 1967 law granting abortion rights, the AP/Google.com reports. An estimated 1,400 to 2,000 women travel from Northern Ireland to England or other parts of Europe each year to obtain abortions. Unlike British women, they do not receive coverage for the procedures under the U.K.'s National Health Service.

Audrey Simpson, director of Northern Ireland's Family Planning Association, said the new document "gives much-needed structure and direction to abortion services." Judges in a series of court rulings have affirmed a right to medically necessary abortion in Northern Ireland, but the government's health authorities had refused to make guidelines based on those ruling, "reflecting widespread opposition within both the British Protestant majority and the Irish Catholic minority," according to the AP/Google.com. As a result, doctors have refused to provide abortions for fear of lawsuits from antiabortion-rights groups (Pogatchnik, AP/Google.com, 3/21).

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