Safe Abortion Day 2023

Thursday September 28th 2023 is the International Day for Safe Abortion, and we have plans!
We will be rallying at Shaftsbury Square from 12:30pm calling for the implementation of abortion services and looking ahead to the introduction of Safe Access Zone. Keep an eye on our socials too as we see how the SOSNI is faring and some other actions.

There will be events taking place all over the world, including in Dublin from our friends in Abortion Rights Campaign on Thursday, in Malta where Voice for Choice will be marching once again on Saturday and Stop Violencies Andorra have activities planned from 26 - 30 September! Check out http://www.september28.org/ to see what all is happening.

We have been told that Safe Access Zones will be in place ‘in a few weeks’ for a few months now, so we are not taking anything for granted, but this is a firm commitment from DOH that SAZs will be live this week. We still do not have commissioned abortion services either, so we’ve plenty to make noise about. Keep reading to learn more about how we got here, and what’s next.

Safe Access Zones

We are pleased to see a statement from the DoH today, 25th September, that they SAZs will be in place by the end of this week, the 29th September.
Earlier this month the NIO confirmed to us that the DoH were ‘on track’ to implement SAZs by the end of the month. This came after a few days of signage outside Causeway Hospital, which was removed as quickly as it was erected.  We are pleased to see a statement from the DoH today, 25th September, that they SAZs will be in place by the end of this week, the 29th September.

However, given the winding road we’ve had to get here we aren’t celebrating just yet.
The Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act (Northern Ireland) 2023 came into force in May after a 6 month lead in period. Despite having time to prepare, 2 months after this The Department said ‘detailed preparation work has been ongoing for a number of months, including mapping and signage arrangements’ however they were still ‘finalising a policy statement on Safe Access Zones as part of the preparations for their introduction.’ Today’s announcement means they will just meet their earlier promise made on 3rd July 2023 to introduce SAZ by the end of September.

This slow movement from the Department means that women and pregnant people accessing health care, and the staff providing it, have continued to be harassed and intimidated despite Safe Access Zone legislation. 

Outstanding commitments

Abortion services are still not commissioned.

While Conscientious Providers are doing their best to rejig resources so that each Trust can provide Early Medical Abortion with pills, this is precarious. Lack of commission means a lack of funding, training, and staff. We’ve seen services collapse before in Trusts as hard working staff take the leave they are entitled to, this is unacceptable for workers and patients alike. 

The Department of Health refuse to provide a central online information point for those needing abortions. While the NIO and some individual Trusts are doing what they can to provide information, some women and pregnant people are still ending up at Stanton Healthcare who continue to provide misinformation, harass and traumatize women; at times deliberately engaging them until past the 9 weeks 6 days cut off. 

Accessing abortion care currently means contacting the Central Booking Line via phone or web form, waiting for them to contact you to arrange an appointment, and then waiting for the appointment. It is a lot of waiting to fit into around 10 weeks! We’ve been contacted by people waiting up to 2 weeks for a call back, and then 5 weeks for an appointment. BPAS are doing what they can to meet demand but are under pressure with resources given that abortions in England have also increased by 17% on this time last year.

The process for surgical abortion or those after 12 weeks is even harder to navigate. Due to a lack of guidelines, and ongoing criminalisation of healthcare providers in the regulations, people are being sent for second opinions or having their request for an abortion assessed by a panel of doctors. Manual Vacuum Aspiration is being progressed in one Trust but we have no specifics on when it will be available, or to what gestation.

We need commissioned and resourced abortion services, managed at a local level, supported by the introduction of telemedicine. 

We need an end to the criminalisation of doctors, midwives and nurses.

We need the 2020 regulations as a minimum. 

No care at home

The UK Government have released figures for January - June 2022.

These figures show that 96 women and pregnant people traveled from NI to England for abortion, 4 a week, 1 every other day.

This includes 3 under 16s, and 3 aged 16 or 17;  6 minors had to travel to England. 

They should have been treated here.
Around a third of those who traveled were under 10 weeks. Were they living in a Trust where services had collapsed? Did they need a surgical abortion due to a medical condition? 

They should have been treated here.
15 were over 20 weeks. Had they found something out at their ‘big scan’, and the doctor was too worried about criminalisation? 

They should have been treated here.

What’s next?

Maybe the Department will have crossed all their Ts and dotted their Is soon, and we will be able to celebrate not too long after International Safe Abortion Day that we have Safe Access Zones that can actually be enforced.

Maybe We’ll have commissioned, resourced, locally available abortion services by the end of 2023.

Maybe then no one else will have to travel.

In any event our Doulas will continue to support people who self manage their abortion, our website will continue to have the most up to date information, and we will continue to advocate for those who need us too - whether they have complex medical needs, are an asylum seeker in contingency accommodation, or have been misled by so called ‘crisis pregnancy centers’.

PRESS RELEASE: IMMEDIATE RELEASE SECRETARY OF STATE TO DIRECT DEPT. OF HEALTH COMMISSIONING OF ABORTION SERVICES IN NI

Begins: Alliance for Choice (AFC) welcome with relief, the news that Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (SOSNI), Brandon Lewis will direct the Department of Health NI to commission a CEDAW compliant abortion service by March 2022, mandating free, safe and legal access to everyone in NI who needs it. 

Naomi Connor commented, 

‘Finally, long overdue abortion services can take their place within healthcare in Northern Ireland. We remain hopeful that people will no longer have to endure the degradation of forced travel to England or navigating a precarious and limited service.’

AFC recognise the weight of today’s intervention, but Westminster must honour the SOSNI’s obligation to step in, as the state party responsible for our rights. Stormont’s democratic dysfunction has failed to deliver on the 2019 NI Executive Formation Act, irrespective of the trauma of forced travel and human rights breaches. AFC urges the Department of Health to ensure the commissioned services proceed unimpeded and with urgency. We also welcome his call to the DoH for immediate funding support for interim provision of early medical abortion, which continues to be precarious. 

Ms Connor continued

‘Each passing day ignores the real women and pregnant people who need clear pathways to adequate abortion healthcare. Further delays and obstruction to abortion services is never acceptable to the one in three of us who require this type of healthcare.’

Emma Campbell said, ‘Whilst we now breathe a sigh of relief, we remain disappointed that whole communities are failed by their leaders on this issue. We can no longer ignore that almost 2,000 abortion seekers sought treatment in the last year from across our population. This announcement doesn’t ask those who disagree with abortion to change, they still don’t have to have one. Therefore we request respect for those who do and allow them to access healthcare in peace and dignity.’

We are vigilant to the presence of rogue pregnancy clinics and groups intent on harassing women using abortion healthcare facilities. It is therefore critical that the government should act swiftly to ensure that women and pregnant people are free from anti-choice harassment and abuse. We also would like to thank all of the outstanding medical staff in NI and England who continued to provide abortion care to us all despite the difficulties and those stand-out local leaders who have stood by us from across the political spectrum.

Contact:

AFC Co-Convenors, 

Emma Campbell 07894063965  

Naomi Connor 07505 096576

ENDS

NOTES for EDITORS:

1. The Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 introduced in March 2020 are designed to implement the recommendations contained in paragraphs 85 and 86 of the CEDAW Report of the 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 Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Report), this includes provision for abortion in cases of severe foetal impairment. These regulations need to be implemented in full so that no pregnant person is forced to travel to England to access basic healthcare.

2. The Committee assesses the gravity of the violations in NI in light of the suffering experienced by women and girls who carry pregnancies to full term against their will due to the current restrictive legal regime on abortion.
   

3. The CEDAW Report can be found here https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22693&LangID=E
   

4. Matters relating to health and justice provisions, both of which are within devolved competence, and the incompatibility with CEDAW could have been remedied by the NI Assembly. In the absence of this however under the Good Friday Agreement (Paragraph 33(b) of Strand 1) the Westminster Parliament is to “legislate as necessary” to ensure the UK’s human rights and other international obligations are met for NI.
   

5. Primary legislation was consequently passed in Westminster. Section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 repealed sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (which criminalised abortions in NI). It also placed the Secretary of State under a legal obligation to ensure that the framework under paragraphs 85 and 86 of the CEDAW report are implemented, including a continuous and ongoing duty to make changes to NI law through secondary law Regulations to ensure such implementation.

6. The Secretary of State consequently introduced The Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020. Regulation 7 provides for termination of pregnancy in cases of “Severe fetal impairment or fatal fetal abnormality.” This is consistent with what is required by the CEDAW framework and primary legislation.

7. Strictly speaking the primary legislation, in repealing the provisions of the 1861 Act, dealt with decriminalisation. However, Regulation 11 introduces an element of re-criminalisation for medical professionals who perform a termination deemed to be outside the terms of the Regulations. This re-criminalisation was not recommended by CEDAW. When medical professionals conduct procedures outside of the legal framework, such issues are usually dealt with administratively or through the application of professional standards, rather than through creating a criminal offence. Re-criminalisation may constitute a chill factor to providing services to which there are entitlements, in particular in a challenge to a precise diagnosis relating to severe impairment or FFA.

8. In relation the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) Article 8 covers the ‘right to respect for private and family life’ and restrictions on the same must be ‘in accordance with the law’. This is the principle of ‘legal certainty’ which has been consistently held by the European Court of Human Rights to apply to abortion services. Put simply this means when a person has a right to an abortion in law there must be a clear way of accessing that service in practice.