Reader Piet called my attention to a BBC post giving a new ruling from the Belfast High Court on abortion. Up to now, abortion in Northern Ireland (NI), like that in its southern neighbor the Republic of Ireland, is legal only when pregnancy endangers the life of the mother or poses a permanent risk to her mental or physical health. That does not include cases of rape, incest, or that of a fetus having a “fatal fetal abnormality” (FFA) that would certainly result in a dead or doomed fetus but that does not endanger the mother’s life. The penalty for violating this law in Northern Ireland is the harshest in Europe, for it can involve life in prison!
I find these rulings completely irrational and retrograde, and they certainly derive from religious doctrine. It’s especially odd because Northern Ireland is part of the UK, and in England it’s legal to get an early-term abortion. Many Irish women travel there when they’re pregnant.
As the BBC notes, a case was inspired by NI resident Sarah Ewart, who was carrying a fetus with anencephaly, a fatal condition in which the fetus is missing major parts of the brain. Although such babies are either born dead or die shortly after birth, Ewart was being forced to carry that infant to term. She went to England to get an abortion, and the attention to the case caused NI’s Department of Justice to ask the Court for its opinion.
Justice Horner ruled that Northern Ireland’s restrictive abortion law indeed violated Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which says this:
From Horner’s decision
“In the circumstances, given this issue is unlikely to be grasped by the legislature in the foreseeable future, and the entitlement of the citizens of Northern Ireland to have their Convention rights protected by the Courts, I conclude that the Article 8 rights of women in Northern Ireland who are pregnant with FFAs or who are pregnant as a result of sexual crime are breached by the impugned provisions.”
Horner also asked that Northern Ireland’s present law be scrutinized to see if there’s any way it could be considered compatible with this Article. If it wasn’t, then that law was illegal.
Of course if Northern Ireland’s law is illegal, then so is the Republic of Ireland’s. But as far as I know, these Articles are advisory, so a country like the Republic of Ireland that breaches them is not kicked out of the EU.
Amnesty International celebrated the ruling, and on its site also quotes Ms. Ewart:
“I hope that today’s ruling means that I, and other women like me, will no longer have to go through the pain I experienced, of having to travel to England, away from the care of the doctors and midwife who knew me, to access the healthcare I needed.”
“I, and many women like me have been failed by our politicians. First, they left me with no option but to go to England for medical care. Then, by their refusal to change the law, they left me with no option but to go to the courts on my and other women’s behalf.
“I am an ordinary woman who suffered a very personal family tragedy, which the law in Northern Ireland turned into a living nightmare.”
When most liberal democracies are liberalizing abortion rights, Ireland and Northern Ireland still prohibit abortions of doomed fetuses, or those resulting from rape or incest. What benighted morality would force a woman to carry such infants to term? Oh, right: religious morality.
