Words are not enough.
Alliance for Choice cautiously welcome the pressure from MPs during this week’s Parliamentary Questions and the announcement of the NIHRC action, led to Robin Walker, Minister for Northern Ireland, advising that the government are ‘considering further legislative action at Westminster’ and ‘stand ready to act’ if the Northern Ireland does not take action to commission services in line with the Regulations passed in April 2020.
However the time for ‘standing’ has long passed and the time for action is now.
Statements of intent fall short given that despite the decriminalisation of abortion in NI in October 2019, followed by the NI Abortion Regulatory Framework in April 2020, the abortion services we need and require and nowhere near being realised. We need action and we need it now.
Recent figures, including the Department of Health, have shown that alarmingly, too many women and pregnant people are not receiving the local abortion healthcare they are entitled to, with some forced to travel to England to access services. This is compounded by the fact we are in the third wave of a pandemic and risk of contagion from variant strains of the COVID-19 virus has increased significantly.
Figures released this week from a range of sources including the Department of Health show:
19 people from the South Eastern Trust area have been denied local early medical abortion provision due to the withdrawal of those services
During the suspension of the early medical abortion service in Northern Trust area 88 women called the Central Access Point and requested abortion services with no local services to refer those people two
One international on-line provider alone has provided abortion pills for 22 women from the South Eastern Trust from beginning to mid January that they should be receiving locally through their Health Trust
One health professional from one Health Trust has advised that they have had to refer 11 people over a ten week gestation ‘elsewhere’ for the abortion healthcare they require.
Recent Freedom of Information requests obtained by Alliance for Choice have confirmed that 100s of women and pregnant people from across Northern Ireland are still being forced to travel England and seek abortions on line
Statistics released from the Department of Health show that there has been a decrease in the number of people in local health trusts who have received local care in respect of serious foetal anomaly.
For each day that passes more and more women and pregnant people are being denied the abortion healthcare they require in NI.
The time for the Minister and Secretary of State to act is NOW before any more women are failed, put at risk or pushed down the inhumane road of reproductive coercion.