‘Culture of fear’ over abortion in the North
A “CULTURE of fear” is restricting women from the North from speaking publicly about their abortion experiences as future policy lies in the hands of a British court.
Women from the pro-choice movement in Belfast have revealed that many women are fearful of speaking about their own abortions.
In the Republic, scores of women came forward to share their stories to help bring about change, but large numbers of women in the North feel restricted from doing so, due to serious legal fears. Access to abortion there is only permitted if a woman’s life is at risk or there’s a permanent or serious risk to her mental or physical health.
Cerys Falvey, co-founder of Rosa NI, a group which took abortion pills outside Belfast Crown Court, said the stringent law was creating a divisive atmosphere.
“There is a culture of fear among women in Northern Ireland due to the strict abortion law,” Ms Falvey said.
“But as we showed outside Belfast Crown Court, the law is unworkable. A lot of women are angry, especially after the repeal in the Republic. They don’t want our rights to be forgotten. But a lot of women are still very afraid.”
Emma Gallen, outreach volunteer at Alliance for Choice in Belfast, said she has witnessed attitudes in the North shift in favour of legal abortion in the wake of a court case two years ago.
In April 2016, a 21-year-old woman from the North who bought abortion pills online to induce a termination was given a three-month suspended prison sentence at Belfast Crown Court. The woman, who was 19 at the time of the termination, was brought to the attention of the authorities after her housemates called the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
Ms Gallen said: “People are starting to wake up. They feel this treatment of women isn’t good enough. Most people now believe abortion [is] a healthcare issue.”
One woman who has decided to tell her story is mother-of-two Kellie Turtle, who was 35 when she had an abortion. She had two small children at the time and decided to have a termination for a variety of reasons.
Ms Turtle strongly believes abortion should be available to women in the North and celebrated when the Republic voted in favour of a repeal of the Eighth Amendment.
“But the shine started to fade,” she told the Irish Independent. “And I started to feel anxious because we’re stuck in a vacuum up here. You’re caught between two jurisdictions. We haven’t had anything like that public conversation in the North. There has been no citizens’ assembly. The public discourse in the North is so restrained in comparison.
“We need to speak out to normalise it, and only then will social attitudes change. All these women are walking around, keeping stories secret and beating themselves up.”