Northern Ireland’s near-blanket abortion ban breaches the UK’s human rights commitments, the high court in Belfast has ruled.
The decision, on Thursday, was made following a case brought by Sarah Ewart, 29, who was denied a termination in 2013 despite a scan showing the foetus she was carrying would not survive.
She travelled to a London clinic for an abortion and upon returning to Northern Ireland started a six-year legal fight to change the law for other women.
Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan told a packed courtroom that Ewart had given compelling testimony about the “horror” she had endured.
“She has been affected by the current law in that she has had to travel to seek an abortion in desperate circumstances. In addition, she runs the risk of being directly affected again by the current legal impositions given that she is at risk of a baby having a fatal foetal abnormality.
“She has had to modify her behaviour in that she could not have medical treatment in Northern Ireland due to the risk of criminal prosecution.”
Keegan said other woman should not have to face the same “trauma and pain”. She said she had followed the ruling of the UK supreme court that Northern Ireland’s abortion law was incompatible with article 8 of the European convention on human rights.
However, Keegan held off making a formal declaration of incompatibility because recent legislation, passed in Westminster, was due to decriminalise abortion in Northern Ireland unless the Stormont assembly was restored by 21 October.
Ewart welcomed the ruling. “Too many women in Northern Ireland have been put through unnecessary pain by our abortion law,” she said. “It is a massive emotional relief. This has not been an easy journey. It is a massive victory. It has been a massive stress emotionally on the family but six years later, let’s enjoy today.”
Amnesty International, which offered an opinion in the case in support of Ewart, said the ruling was a legal landmark that put pressure on the Northern Ireland Office to ensure a swift transition to free, safe, legal and local abortion services.
“Today’s ruling shows just how urgently we need change, so that we can access this healthcare without having to travel and without being treated as criminals,” said Grainne Teggart, Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland campaign manager.
How does access to abortion vary across the UK?
The 1967 Abortion Act legalised terminations in England, Wales and Scotland. It permits abortion for non-medical reasons up to 24 weeks of pregnancy and with the permission of two doctors.
Abortion law was devolved to Holyrood as part of the Scotland Act 2016. The SNP has reaffirmed its commitment to current legal protections and to maintaining time limits in line with the rest of the UK.
The 1967 act does not extend to Northern Ireland. Abortion is legal in Northern Ireland only when the pregnancy poses a direct threat to the mother’s life. An amendment by the Labour MP Stella Creasy to allow Northern Irish women access to NHS-funded abortions in England was passed by Westminster in 2017.
The Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, confirmed that regulations allowing Scottish health boards to provide abortion services to women from Northern Ireland would come into force at the beginning of November of that year.
In July 2019, the UK parliament in Westminster voted to harmonise the laws on abortion and same-sex marriage across the whole of the UK if the Northern Ireland Assembly had not been restored by 21 October.
On 3 October 2019, the high court in Belfast ruled that Northern Ireland’s strict abortion law breaches the UK’s human rights commitments.
The Democratic Unionist party, which opposed abortion law liberalisation, made no immediate response. Other parties praised the court’s judgment.
Ewart deserved to be commended for her “courage and conviction”, said Paula Bradshaw, an Alliance party assembly member.
Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Féin’s leader in Northern Ireland, said local politicians should return to Stormont, mothballed since power sharing collapsed in 2017, to enshrine reproductive rights.
In a separate case, a woman is facing prosecution for obtaining abortion pills for her pregnant , 15-year-old daughter.