‘Postcode lottery’ preventing women in Northern Ireland accessing abortion services

A third of women in Northern Ireland have no access to abortion services amid a postcode lottery, human rights campaigners have warned.

Amnesty International said the country’s health minister had failed to commission or fund critical services in some areas a year after termination of pregnancies was decriminalised.

It warned the “shameful” lack of abortion provision was putting women at risk.

Abortion became legal in Northern Ireland last October after MPs in Westminster voted by a landslide in July 2019 to give women the right to abortion — marking an end to the procedure being banned in almost all circumstances, even rape and incest, and the threat of life imprisonment for women seeking a termination.

Grainne Teggart, Amnesty’s Northern Ireland campaign manager, said: “The health minister’s failings have left women in a vulnerable and dangerous position.

“It’s utterly shameful that a whole year since abortion was decriminalised, the health minister has failed to commission services and has completely neglected the needs of both women and our healthcare service. Instead, he has left it to our health trusts and charities to provide these services with zero additional support.

“We now have a postcode lottery for abortion services, where women in one trust area are effectively unable to access early medical abortion healthcare – their only option to buy pills online or put themselves in danger by travelling during a pandemic. Abortion is now legal and no-one in need of the service must be refused." 

Northern Irish health minister Robin Swann must urgently take action by “commissioning full and accessible services” and rolling out telemedicine for abortion, she said.

Amnesty International said chaos unleashed by the coronavirus emergency has left health trusts finding abortion services difficult to manage. Northern Healthcare Trust recently had to close its early medical abortion service, leaving 10 out of Northern Ireland’s 26 areas are no longer running the service.

Women living in areas served by the Northern trust - including Antrim, Cookstown, Magherafelt, Ballymena, Ballymoney and Coleraine - were expected to be moved to other trusts but a shortage of capacity means this is failing to take place.

Women are unable to make the trip overseas to England - where there is a funded abortion service up and running - in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.

When the pandemic first hit, The Independent reported women in Northern Ireland who are seeking abortions could be left with nowhere to go because of restrictions on travel during the coronavirus outbreak.

Ruairi Rowan, of Informing Choices NI, raised concerns about the findings of the new study as he urged the health minister to take action. 

He said: “Since the new abortion framework was established it has been left up to health trusts and ICNI to absorb the needs of women, but without additional resources, we’re seeing the services struggle to cope.

“The sustainability of services will always be in question until commissioning takes place. Therefore, we call on the health minister to urgently begin the commissioning process, including the use of telemedicine, before the services collapse everywhere.”

A long-awaited new legal framework around abortions took effect in Northern Ireland from the end of March but its rules on terminations have come in for criticism from campaigners, who previously told The Independent they are not “fit for purpose” and will put vulnerable women and girls at grave risk.

In the Republic of Ireland, abortion became legally accessible in January 2019, but women there are also regularly forced to travel to England, where abortion is legal for the first 24 weeks of pregnancy compared to only 12 weeks in Ireland.

Northern Ireland’s Department of Health has been contacted for comment.