‘FEMINIST MAY MUST CHANGE ABORTION LAW’
Labour demands N. Ireland reform
PRESSURE mounted on Theresa May last night to prove she is a feminist and end Northern Ireland’s abortion ban.
It comes in the wake of Saturday’s landslide referendum win, repealing the ban in the Irish Republic.
Labour’s Shami Chakrabarti said access to safe, legal abortion was a matter of fundamental human rights and the Prime Minister had to act.
The Shadow Attorney General told the BBC: “We are calling on Mrs May, a self-identifying feminist, to negotiate with the parties in Northern Ireland and to legislate without further delay.
“You can’t have democracy without fundamental human rights. The women of Northern Ireland have suffered long enough.”
Currently, terminations are only legal in Northern Ireland if the life of the mother is at risk, or if there is a risk of permanent and serious damage to her mental or physical health. Abortions remain illegal in cases of rape, incest or severe fetal abnormality. But Downing Street says abortion must be decided by the Northern Ireland Assembly which has not been sitting for 16 months. Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, chair of the Commons Health Committee, told the BBC that she and other MPs planned to put forward an amendment on the issue to the Domestic Violence bill now passing through Parliament. But the Prime Minister faces a political headache because her fragile administration depends on the support of the 10 Democratic Unionist Party MPs – who strongly oppose reform to Northern Ireland’s strict laws.