AN INTRODUCTION TO OUR CONSULTATION RESPONSE

“The Government would welcome feedback from anyone with an interest or view on the proposed shape of this reform, addressing the specific questions listed throughout the consultation document and set out in Annex D. We would particularly welcome views from those directly impacted by the current law and any proposed changes, including organisations representing those affected by these issues, including healthcare professionals, Health and Social Care (HSC) Trusts in Northern Ireland and commissioners, independent sector abortion providers and Royal Colleges.”

Alliance for Choice are the largest grassroots campaigning group for abortion rights in Northern Ireland. We are people who have had abortions and people who have helped provide abortions even in a previously illegal context. Alliance for Choice were part of the core team who negotiated the shape of the amendment that passed on 18th July 2019 via Stella Creasy’s office. The law includes 2 paragraphs verbatim from the CEDAW inquiry that Alliance for Choice was instrumental in pushing for along with NIFPA and NIWEP, when all legislative avenues were exhausted with the failure to extend the 1967 Act in 2008 and a then-anti-choice devolved Assembly in Northern Ireland, who retained the power over abortion legislation in 2010. Our important work with Informing Choices (previously FPA NI) and Northern Ireland Women’s European Platform on the 2016-2018 CEDAW Inquiry into Abortion in NI, became an international benchmark for change, as the Inquiry recommendations form the basis of the law enacted by Westminster on abortion, an unprecedented success for such a procedural human rights instrument.

The new legislative framework for Northern Ireland ought to deliver ‘at a minimum’; the statutory duty in section 9 of the NI EF Act, and consistent with the recommendations in paragraphs 85 and 86 of the UN CEDAW Report, Inquiry concerning the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland under article 8 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

Alliance for Choice are led by the people who have been directly impacted by the law; either we have been forced to travel, forced to buy illegal pills online, or we have illegally provided the pills, had our homes raided, harassed by clinic protestors and. We have been clinic escorts that helped women travel in and out of Marie Stopes clinic safely through vicious harassment while it was open. We were an integral part of the Women and Equalities Committee Inquiry into Abortion in NI in December 2018 and January 2019, the Inquiry team looked to us to populate and facilitate their sessions. We facilitated the submission of over 160 statements from women and pregnant people detailing the impact of our restrictive laws on them and their loved ones to the inquiry. We provided evidence to support the need for change, including the findings of the CEDAW report and we gave Oral evidence to the committee.

Alliance for Choice are in a prime position to respond to the public consultation on abortion, so will be responding to the broad remit of the consultation and equality screening, bearing in mind the scope of our organisation’s work and the direct experience of our members with the issue. Our response is supported by footnotes and an Appendix.

“One of the guiding factors of this work will be to ensure that there is a balancing of rights and obligations, as far as practicable, so that no one is compelled to provide services that they have an objection to on the grounds of conscience. This will be recognised and respected, in accordance with other existing medical procedures.’ SOSNI

The grounds for abortion access are already detailed in the CEDAW recommendations referred to in the law. It would not be in the spirit of CEDAW to limit these already clearly set out grounds by adding in further clauses to access. Introducing new legislation is only the beginning of what is needed for an accessible abortion service. For instance in South Africa, which has one of the most liberal laws in the world, access is deeply problematic due to lack of awareness of the law, abortion stigma, poor infrastructure, and the training needs of providers not being met. Repeated examples in the USA indicate unnecessary regulations can have a hugely detrimental impact on access. Health professionals can be isolated in workplaces by peers and subject to and be a source of stigma.

The common elements in other countries’ legislation are rarely based on contemporary human rights minimum standards, such as those set out and enshrined in CEDAW, but rather based on the prevailing social mores of the time. Most other European countries legislated for greater access to abortion services in the 1960s - 1980s and have not moved on much since, however medical technology and the skills of people required to offer abortion care have both changed significantly, not least because of the advent of Early Medical Abortion with Pills

Refusal of Care or conscientious objection is known to be greater in countries where the bureaucratic demands of provision fall most heavily on medical practitioners. Removing administrative obligations has been shown to reduce the number of CO medics and increasing the likelihood of widespread refusal of care will create a de facto blackout of care for many regions of Northern Ireland. We would like to point out the General Medical Council guidelines to Conscientious Objection for medical practice and offer that this is adequate and that abortion services should not be exceptionalised when it comes to CO.