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Home Page > News > Ireland’s first abortion clinic opens in Belfast despite opposition - POLL

Ireland’s first abortion clinic opens in Belfast despite opposition - POLL

Women over 16 all over Ireland can now travel to Belfast for termination

CATHY HAYES,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Thursday, October 11, 2012, 7:17 AM

Updated Thursday, October 11, 2012, 9:11 AM

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The Belfast center’s programme director is Dawn Purvis, the former leader of the Progressive Unionist Party, a fringe loyalist party

Photo by Google images

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The first abortion clinic on the island of Ireland has opened in Belfast.

Women over the age of 16 will now be able to make appointments for abortion even though it remains illegal in the Irish Republic.

The clinic will offer abortions up to nine week’s pregnancy, as well as offering contraceptive advice, HIV testing, and sexual disease testing. Two doctors will decide whether the abortion can go ahead.

The clinic will be owned and operated by Marie Stopes International, one of the leading abortion service providers in Britain.

Opposition is already mounting.

Bernie Smyth, of the Anti-Abortion group Precious Life, told the BBC that members want the centre closed before its scheduled opening.

The cost per abortion will be $500 according to clinic operators.

While abortion is legal in Britain, religious opposition in Northern Ireland on all sides has stopped abortion clinics there.

The Belfast center’s programme director is Dawn Purvis, the former leader of the Progressive Unionist Party, a fringe loyalist party, said it was time for such a clinic.

She stated: “We offer a safe place for women and men to find support, be provided with help and counselling, to feel that they are being listened to and not judged. It is a matter of choice, every step of the way.

“A woman may decide that she does not want to choose a termination. If she does, then offering early medical abortion cuts out the stress of having to travel outside Northern Ireland to access those services.”

According to The Irish Times, 1,007 women from Northern Ireland travelled to England or Wales for an abortion, and 4,149 women from the Republic.

Purvis stated that the centre would operate within all legal frameworks.

Nster.com

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48 Comments

15 - 48 | See all comments

BippyBellito | Oct 13, 2012, 12:23 PM EDT

Is it really being named the Obama/Biden Abortion Clinic?

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jacersagain | Oct 12, 2012, 08:04 PM EDT

As I’ve said before on abortion I was once pro-choice (despite being a Catholic) but after personally listening to the horrendous aftermath emotional stories of women who chose abortion, I can no longer say that abortion is a right choice. Marie Stopes belonged to her times. She would not ever have known the psychological after-effects of abortion on the women of her times. It’s our times now, Marie is no longer around. Today, women are better informed, better supported and have no reason to abort except on medical or spiritual grounds as they may freely choose. This proposed murder clinic should be seen in modern days to be what it is: a once was back-street profiteering organisation, now a legalised one and should not be allowed to operate.

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TayandCake | Oct 12, 2012, 12:02 PM EDT

Marie Stopes was a bigot, she said Prussians, Russians, Catholic and Jews are evil or something worst. She also sent Hitler a book of love poems. What is with these bleeding heart liberal lefties, don't they know they are becoming what it is they hate, FACISTS. Some of them have stopped using the term multicultural and began using the creepy term enrichment. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON FOLKS???

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marciaashley | Oct 12, 2012, 10:37 AM EDT

if some one would end a life because of their greed and selfishness then i would never want to meet you or speak a kind word of you. how can you live with yourselves knowing what you have done. that poor little baby. i wrote a poem about this two weeks ago and it is good.

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IrelandNorth | Oct 12, 2012, 06:00 AM EDT

(a) There's no evidence that Dawn Purvis was ever a member of the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), even if she WAS a spokesperson for their political wing, the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP). (b) To her credit, she's one of at least two women from a loyalist background in the northren province of Ulster actively learning the Irish language (Gaelic), (the other one being a Derry City Councillor. Ergo progressive! (c) Abortion was legal on the mainland before it was legal either on the Island of Great Britain, or now on the Island of Ireland. (d) It's as ethically untenable to be anti abortion if one is not also a pacifist and vegetarian. (e) As much as it is to be pro-choice whilst also denying an embryo/fetus/baby life! (f) Either way, it's a personal decision, and nobody's business but the subjects.

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jetsnoone | Oct 12, 2012, 02:16 AM EDT

IRA should close the clinic using violence if necessary.... time to take back your country from Brit. policy of killing your own children.

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Rebelforce | Oct 12, 2012, 12:20 AM EDT

The headline reads: "Women over 16 all over Ireland can now travel to Belfast for termination." "Termination". It sounds almost as chilling and sinister as the way the Nazis referred to killing Jews as "Special Treatment".

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dickmac | Oct 11, 2012, 09:39 PM EDT

I made a comment and it is NOT recorded ! May I ask WHY.

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Nicoletta | Oct 11, 2012, 09:31 PM EDT

Keep Ireland, north and south, free of the scourge of abortion.

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jetsnoone | Oct 11, 2012, 06:23 PM EDT

Some here blast pedophile priests, and rightly so,but will the same people blast the murdering doctors who kill these babies? Not in a million years, and that my Irish friends is typical of the liberals we have been dealing with in America for many years now....the liberals will give the killing doctors respect. The hypocrisy, astounding.

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weeknocky | Oct 11, 2012, 05:11 PM EDT

How nice - now you don't have to travel to a different country to kill your child.

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JessNiLeacai | Oct 11, 2012, 04:49 PM EDT

THOUSANDS of Irish women travel to Britain yearly to have abortions. Please anyone opposing this get off your soap boxes and high horses and stop blinding yourselves to the fact that this is happening. This is obviously a service that is needed on this island, otherwise it would not have been brought here in the first place. It makes the hardship that these women are going through an easier. We all have our own ethics and moral codes but to deny someone the right to choose is disgusting. There are women ending their lives on a regular basis because they cannot abort due to various reasons and these women have mental issues and sexual diseases. My cousin and friend are morticians and tell me the horrific stories that they experience on a daily basis due to the lack of support and such clinics. You want to talk of murder? My aunt died from carrying a child while having cancer and both her and the child died because she could not receive treatment. It is absolutely appalling that anyone would say that abortion is not a sometimes necessary option!!

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Bocktherobber | Oct 11, 2012, 04:27 PM EDT

durtymurphy -- Belfast was always part of Ireland. The argument is about who governs it, not where it is.

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PiperMac52 | Oct 11, 2012, 04:07 PM EDT

I would like to welcome Ireland to the world of debasement and moral relativism. Things can only get better from here...

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cillowen | Oct 11, 2012, 03:38 PM EDT

with too many charlie lookers - it makes sense there

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