‘North abortion ban is a breach of rights’

But top UK judges throw out challenge to laws

THE UK’S most senior judges have said the North’s abortion laws are incompatible with human rights legislation.

A majority of Supreme Court judges in London said the ban on terminations in the North in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality needed ‘radical reconsideration’.

But by a majority of four to three, the seven-strong panel of judges ruled yesterday that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission had no legal standing to bring its challenge against the legislation.

The four judges in the majority also said the law was incompatible with the right for respect for private and family life in article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Downing Street insisted the issue had to be dealt with by a restored devolved Stormont Assembly. And yesterday, Leo Campaigner: Sarah Ewart Varadkar said the issue ‘should be decided by the people who live in Northern Ireland’.

The Taoiseach said: ‘If we had an Assembly or Executive up and running that could be determined. You could have a vote in the Assembly and a decision in the Executive. It really emphasises more and more why it’s so important that we have the institutions up and running in Northern Ireland.’

Sarah Ewart, who in 2013 travelled from the North to England after being told her baby would not survive outside the womb, was one of three cases referred to in the London Supreme Court judgment.

‘I, and we, will not stop until we can get our own medical care in our own hospitals at home,’ she said outside the court.

‘To Theresa May, I would say, “We need change and help. This is a medical procedure that we need in our hospitals with our own medical team. Please help us now.”’

Ms Ewart also said: ‘I am relieved to hear the highest court in the land has recognised that Northern Ireland is in breach of human rights for people who find themselves with fatal foetal abnormality and have said that the law needs to be changed, so we will keep going until we get that change.’

Sinn Féin Stormont leader Michelle O’Neill said there was a momentum for reform. She said the judgment was ‘further evidence we need to change the law in the North of Ireland and stop failing women’.

She said she’d prefer to be in the Stormont Assembly trying to legislate on the issue, blaming the lack of a power-sharing administration on the DUP.

Britain’s 1967 Abortion Act does not extend to Northern Ireland, where abortion is illegal except where a woman’s life is at risk or there is a permanent or serious danger to her mental or physical health.

The Northern Assembly voted in February 2016 against legalising abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality and rape or incest. Northern Secretary Karen Bradley yesterday told the House of Commons: ‘The government is carefully considering the judgment and its implications.’

‘Stormont’s job to change law’