By Reuters Staff
Mar 23, 2021
LONDON (Reuters) - The British government published legislation on Tuesday to hand it powers to compel Northern Ireland to implement more liberal abortion services, despite opposition from the region’s first minister and health minister.
Britain’s parliament voted in 2019 to legalise abortion in Northern Ireland, allowing terminations without restriction up to 12 weeks and with no time limit in the case of “severe foetal impairment or fatal foetal abnormality”.
Published March 23, 2021
The decision to introduce new powers compelling Stormont to implement abortion laws has not been taken lightly, Brandon Lewis has said.
The government has published regulations allowing the NI secretary to direct commissioning of central abortion services in NI.
Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-56485487
UK government says it is disappointed full abortion services not yet available
Fri, Mar 19, 2021
The DUP will “vigorously oppose” any further legislative action to see new abortion laws implemented in the region, an MP has warned.
The law was liberalised last year to allow terminations in Northern Ireland following action taken at Westminster.
By Jayne McCormack, BBC News NI Political Reporter
Feb 16, 2021
The DUP has proposed a new law to prevent abortions being carried out in NI in cases of non-fatal disabilities.
NI's abortion laws changed significantly last year following legislation passed at Westminster.
Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-56041850
Bill targets provision that allows terminations up to birth in cases of serious disability
Tue, Feb 16, 2021
A legislative attempt to repeal an aspect of Northern Ireland’s recently-liberalised abortion laws has been formally tabled at Stormont.
The Private Members’ Bill in the name of Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MLA Paul Givan targets a specific provision within the region’s abortion regulations that allows terminations up to birth in cases of serious non-fatal disabilities.
Northern Ireland’s new abortion guidelines are welcome but should have gone further
Posted: Fri, 27 Mar 2020
by Dr Antony Lempert
As the government publishes a framework for the extension of abortion rights in NI, Dr Antony Lempert welcomes politicians' belated willingness to defend women's right to choose but laments several missed opportunities.
On 23 February 2018 the UN committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) issued a damning verdict on the state of abortion in Northern Ireland. It concluded that women were subject to violence by virtue of the fact that nearly every woman or child who became pregnant had to carry the pregnancy to term. This was the case even where there was evidence that the foetus would not be viable and even in cases of incest or rape.
Another US anti-abortion extremist sticks his nose into UK’s affairs
March 19, 2020
by Barry Duke
FOLLOWING our March 15 report that Roger Kiska, above, of Alliance Defending Freedom, was voicing his anger over an exclusion area outside a London abortion clinic, comes news that another American – ‘pro-life’ congressman Chris Smith, above – is demanding that the British government reverse its decision to impose UK abortion laws on Northern Ireland.
According to far-right Christian website LifeSiteNews, Smith has written to the UK Secretary of State for N Ireland calling on him to refer the province’s abortion laws back to the region’s own devolved government. In a letter co-signed by fellow members of Congress Andy Harris, Ann Wagner and Vicky Hartzler, Smith wrote:
DUP calls for abortion reform to be dealt with at Northern Ireland Assembly
Jonathan Bell
March 18 2020
The DUP has called for the reform of abortion legislation to be dealt with by the Northern Ireland Assembly. Last year, the Westminster parliament introduced new abortion laws in Northern Ireland because of the failure of MLAs to restore power sharing by an October deadline.
At Northern Ireland questions on Wednesday in the Commons, Labour MP Dame Diana Johnson asked for an assessment of the effect of the collapse of Flybe on the ability of women in Northern Ireland to access abortion services in England.
911 doctors, nurses sign letter refusing to cooperate with new abortion law in Northern Ireland
By Louise Bevan
Nov 9, 2019
Since Northern Ireland formally legalized abortion, there has been a backlash from a faction of medical professionals who say they will not assist in the procedure.
Citing a violation of their Catholic beliefs, a number of doctors and nurses have signed a letter of opposition to the Northern Irish Secretary of State Julian Smith and the Secretary for the Department of Health Richard Pengelly.
How We Won the Right to Choose
By Maev McDaid and Brian Christopher
10.31.2019
Coming hot on the heels of Dublin’s repeal of anti-abortion laws, decriminalization in the North is a decisive victory for Irish feminists. The church and the state are losing their control over our bodies — but we still need to make abortion legal, safe, and free.
October 22 marked a decisive victory in the North of Ireland, as abortion was finally decriminalized. This news will surely have passed many people by — after all, in national as in international media, the North is almost only ever “represented” by the bigots in the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). But last week, this stridently anti-choice party was finally overruled by the Westminster parliament. Its move to decriminalize abortion in the North came fifty years after a similar step was taken on the British mainland. Yet this success especially owes to decades of heroic struggles waged by Irish feminists.
continued: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/10/northern-ireland-abortion-eighth-amendment
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