Over a hundred Northern Irish women risk jail after their public admission that they took illegal abortion pills.
The women have signed a letter admitting their actions amid attempts to halt an amendment that would make non-NHS abortions illegal in Ulster.
The Observer newspaper reports that the women have signed a letter openly confirming that they took abortion pills bought on the internet from pro-choice charities.
Belfast-born student Suzanne Lee, 23, told the Observer she was prepared to be arrested and taken to court over her decision last August to take abortion pills, bought on the internet from pro-choice group Women On Web, when seven weeks’ pregnant.
Lee said: “If the pro-life people want to report me to the public prosecution service and try to send me to jail – go for it!
“I am willing to face the consequences because I knew doing this was illegal. I am speaking out because I’m happy to stand up in court and try to highlight how absurd this situation is.”
The report says the women’s’ action further fuels the debate prompted by the opening of the first private clinic to offer legal abortions to women in the province.
The paper reports that 1861 Offences Against the Persons Act makes abortion illegal in most cases and carries a penalty of life imprisonment.
Several men who helped women obtain the pills have also signed the letter.
The 19th-century act also makes it a serious offence to help someone procure an abortion.
Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where women cannot get an abortion through the NHS except in extreme circumstances, such as when a mother’s life is at risk.
Historically, thousands of Northern Irish women have crossed the Irish Sea to have terminations in English hospitals and clinics.
Pro-choice campaigners have mounted their campaign after an attempt by assembly members Alban Maginness of the SDLP and Democratic Unionist Paul Girvan to amend Northern Ireland’s criminal justice bill.
The amendment is intended to make abortions outside the NHS in the province illegal.
It will prevent the recently opened Marie Stopes clinic in central Belfast from providing non-surgical, early-term procedures.
The women have admitted in the letter that they: “have either taken the abortion pill or helped women to procure the abortion pill in order to cause an abortion here in Northern Ireland.”
The letter adds: “We represent just a small fraction of those who have used, or helped others to use, this method because it is almost impossible to get an NHS abortion here, even when there is likely to be a legal entitlement to one.
“We are publishing this letter now because of the Maginness/Girvan amendment to the criminal justice bill which we believe is aimed at closing down the debate on abortion here, as much as it is about closing down Marie Stopes.
“We want to emphasise that medical abortions happen in Northern Ireland on a daily basis but without any medical support or supervision.
“We were delighted when Marie Stopes came to Belfast as it meant that women who are unwell can access a doctor to supervise what we have done or helped others to do without medical help.
“And therefore have a right to a legal abortion here.”
The Observer report concludes that the Alliance For Choice pro-abortion group claims the Maginness-Girvan amendment, which will be debated at Stormont this Tuesday, will not only shut down Marie Stopes’s abortion services but the entire debate.
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.IrelandNorth | Mar 14, 2013, 03:48 PM EDT
Safest form of contraception is sexual abstinence. Knickers on and legs crossed, and for young guys to tie a knot in it. What could be simpler. Who knows, we may even have cntraception trains running from Dublin to Belfast in stark contrast to late 60s in th eopposite direction. The more things change the more they stay the same.
eiriamach | Mar 11, 2013, 08:30 AM EDT
That second line should read "pro-life" zealots. The pro-choice movement has its zealots too, no doubt, but the pro-life movement gathers and publishes the information used in assassinations and clinic bombings.
eiriamach | Mar 10, 2013, 09:49 PM EDT
These women certainly are brave, in a way that I do not understand. American women know that if they put their names on anything that says they've had abortions, pro-choice zealots will publish and circulate the names, sometimes along with photos and home addresses and phone numbers and work places. They'll harass the women and their families relentlessly. They'll label the women criminals if there is a law against the drug they took; they'll label them "murderers," law or no law. These activities by "pro-life" groups have helped fanatics to murder several doctors who worked at women's health clinics in the USA. Beware of the tactics of "pro-life" groups. They can kill you. Keep abortion tied to the right to privacy. We do not need any more martyrs.
darao | Mar 10, 2013, 08:39 PM EDT
Brave women! Standing up for the rights of women to choose how to manage their reproductive choices is a good thing. The state should get out of the control of abortions and provide it as a medical service in support of those women who choose it.
eiriamach | Mar 10, 2013, 03:57 PM EDT
Patrick Counihan, there is no "pro-abortion group." There are many groups and individuals who believe that abortion must be an available service within any government-managed health care system. But no one, not the most zealous pro-choice advocate I've known or ever heard of, is "pro-abortion." Your right-fringe political bias has skewed your reporting. You need to be watching out for that kind of slip!
Seanmor | Mar 10, 2013, 02:21 PM EDT
Every map I have seen clearly shows that the 'Ulster' state is in Ireland- not across the sea in Britain. Yes, he Wee Six got an exemption from G.B.s abortion laws of the 1970s because Unionist and Nationalist politicians sough such an exemption. The article does NOT indicate the ages of the abortd babies, but in the early '60s when 6 European nuns of child-bearing age were raped in the Congo, their Rev. Mother gaveeach a "morning-afterpls" tin order to prevent any pregnancy - and I FULLY approve of her actions.