CLAIRE SIMPSON
20 January, 2021
Westminster may intervene over the provision of abortion services in the north, the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) has said.
Abortion up to 12 weeks into pregnancy has been legal in the north since last year.
MPs voted for a change in the law in 2019, during the hiatus at Stormont.
Government says further legislation could be proposed
Jonathan Bell
January 20 2021
An MP has claimed over 100 women in Northern Ireland have been refused an abortion with some turning to the internet for pills.
It comes as new Department of Health figures show there were 22 abortions carried out in Northern Ireland during the financial year of 2019/20.
The London government has warned that it may intervene directly if abortions are not made more freely available in Northern Ireland soon.
By Adam Kula
Wednesday, 20th January 2021
Robin Walker MP, the minister for state for Northern Ireland, made the comments in the House of Commons as he was quizzed about the current law in the Province.
The whole issue dates back to summer 2019.
At that time MPs in Westminster passed a law which said if the Northern Irish devolved government was not restored by late October, then the London government would act to change the law on terminations, bypassing the NI Assembly altogether – a move which outraged anti-abortion groups.
A human rights group says the government’s inaction has left a health care void in a country where the procedure was legalized in 2019, but remains largely unavailable.
By Megan Specia
Jan. 11, 2021
A human rights group in Northern Ireland is taking legal action against the government over its failure to provide abortion access, the group announced on Monday, highlighting the continuing struggle for safe abortions more than a year after the procedure was legalized in the region.
The organization, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, cited deep concerns about a lack of abortion services, which it says has left a health care void for many women and girls.
Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/world/europe/northern-ireland-abortion.html
Exclusive: government accused of failing to ensure access more than a year after terminations legalised
Alexandra Topping
Sun 10 Jan 2021
Northern Ireland’s human rights commission (NIHRC) has launched a landmark legal action against the UK government for its failure to commission safe and accessible abortion services more than a year after abortion was made legal in the country, the Guardian can reveal.
The Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, is accused of unlawfully denying the rights of women in the country, who experts warn are being forced to use unregulated services and to travel to high-risk areas during the pandemic. The NIHRC is also taking action against the Northern Ireland Executive and the country’s Department of Health.
05 Jan 2021
Amnesty International has learned that Northern Ireland’s South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust has stopped referrals to their early medical abortion service as of today (5 January) due to the failure of Department of Health to commission and resource services.
Despite abortion regulations taking effect from March 2020, the Department of Health’s failure to commission services means that health trusts have been left to absorb the costs and resource abortion care themselves, whilst battling through a pandemic.
Patrick Corrigan, Lisa
Smyth
January 06 2021
Health bosses have been accused of failing more than a third of a million
people amid claims an abortion service has been stopped.
Amnesty International said a failure by the Health Minister to commission
services and provide funding has forced the South Eastern Trust to cease the
provision of vital abortion care.
Access to abortion services will end in the Northern trust from this Monday
Seanín Graham
03 October, 2020
ABORTION services in one of Northern Ireland's biggest health trusts will stop this Monday due to limited resources.
In a statement to The Irish News, the Northern health trust confirmed access to its Early Medical Abortion (EMA) provision will cease, six months after it was first introduced.
Ellen Coyne
October 02 2020
Abortion services have been cut in over a third of local areas in Northern Ireland due to a lack of resources.
It comes after the Department of Health failed to fund and commission abortion services in Northern Ireland. Amnesty International and Informing Choices NI (ICNI), a reproductive health charity, said they were aware that the Northern Health and Social Care Trust had stopped accepting referrals for early medical abortion services from 5pm on Friday. The trust had been funding abortion services itself for over six months, and in a statement it said that it "does not currently have the resource to continue to provide the service."
Continued: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/women-must-not-be-refused-abortion-services-cut-in-a-third-of-local-areas-in-northern-ireland-over-lack-of-resources-39583222.html
By Miriam Berger
September 26, 2020
Argentina’s president was expected to propose a landmark law to decriminalize abortion, setting a new standard for Latin America. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit. The release date was delayed, indefinitely.
Ruth Zurbriggen, a reproductive rights activist with the group Socorristas en Red, felt “pain and rage.” But the group’s work continued — efforts, she said, made even more pressing as the pandemic took center stage.
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