Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
NEW LEGAL FIGHT OVER ABORTION
NI woman goes to High Court after judges say law ‘incompatible’ with human rights
A WOMAN who travelled to England for an abortion is taking her case to the High Court after judges slammed the laws here as “incompatible” with human rights.
Sarah Ewart was one of three cases considered by the Supreme Court in a failed challenge against strict termination legislation in Northern Ireland.
She said yesterday: “The courts are in agreement that the law needs to be changed so let’s just do this.”
THE Government is facing mounting pressure to reform abortion laws in Northern Ireland after the Supreme Court said they were “incompatible” with human rights legislation.
Pro-choice campaigners demanded action after a majority of senior judges added the ban on terminations in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality needed “radical reconsideration”.
While the majority of judges expressed a view the current regime is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, they did not go so far as to make a formal declaration of incompatibility – a move that would probably have forced a law change.
That was essentially a legal technicality – a majority of judges ruled the organisation that brought the case did not have the authority to do so – and it did little to dampen calls for the Government to intervene amid the absence of an Executive.
Deputy Supreme Court president Lord Mance said the present law
“clearly needs radical reconsideration” and that the opinion of the court – while not legally binding – “cannot safely be ignored”.
Lord Mance said in a lengthy written ruling: “I am, in short, satisfied that the present legislative position in Northern Ireland is untenable and intrinsically disproportionate in excluding from any possibility of abortion pregnancies involving fatal foetal abnormality or due to rape or incest.”
Downing Street insisted the judgment did not change its view that the issue should be dealt with by a restored devolved Assembly.
A spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May said: “The judgment will now be considered.
“But, as we have said repeatedly, we want to see a devolved government restored so that locally-elected, democratically-accountable politicians can debate the fundamental changes to policy on abortion.” Sarah Ewart, who in 2013 went to England after being told her baby would not survive outside the womb, was one of three cases referred to in the Supreme Court ruling.
Speaking outside the Court in London, she said: “I, and we, will not stop until we can get our own medical care in our hospitals at home.
“To Theresa May, I say, ‘We need help. This is a medical procedure that we need in our hospitals with our own medical team. Please help us now’.”
Mrs Ewart will take a case to the High Court in Belfast to seek the formal declaration of incompatibility that the Supreme Court declined to grant.
She said: “I am relieved to hear the highest court in the land has recognised Northern Ireland is in breach of human rights for people who find themselves with fatal foetal abnormality and have said the law needs to be changed, so we will keep going until we get that change.”
NIHRC chief commissioner Les Allamby said: “Northern Ireland is a wonderful place to both live and work yet it is in danger of becoming a place apart in human rights and equality that is not good for Northern Ireland and not good for the UK Government.
“In the absence of an Executive, we must ask Parliament to take our laws out of the 19th century and bring them into the 21st century.”
Sinn Fein’s Stormont leader Michelle O’neill, who met with vocal pro-choice campaigner and Labour MP Stella Creasy at Westminster, said she would prefer to be in the Assembly trying to legislate on the issue. Blaming the lack of powersharing administration on the DUP, she said: “This is one
We will not stop until we get our own medical care in our hospitals SARAH EWART LONDON YESTERDAY
of the many rights issues which the DUP are denying citizens in the North.”
Anti-abortion campaigners drew encouragement from the ruling.
Bernadette Smyth, of campaign group Precious Life, said: “What happened here today was upholding democracy. This court made a ruling that this court has no right to make decisions for Northern Ireland.
“Regardless of their opinions, this is a law in Northern Ireland and that is where these decisions should be made.”
Anti-abortion advocate and Democratic Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson welcomed the judgment.
He said: “There are serious questions to be asked of the Human Rights Commission about the amount of public expenditure which has gone into this case when they ought to have known was beyond their remit.”
Unlike other parts of the UK, the 1967 Abortion Act does not extend to Northern Ireland. 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. Anyone who unlawfully carries out an abortion could be jailed for life.
The Assembly voted in February 2016 against legalising abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality and rape or incest.
The debate in Northern Ireland has intensified after the Republic voted by a landslide last month to liberalise the state’s laws.
Responding to an urgent question in the Commons, Secretary of State Karen Bradley said: “No formal declaration has been made by the court and the appeal has been dismissed.
“But the analysis and comments from the court on the issue of incompatibility will be clearly heard by this House and politicians in Northern Ireland.”