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Marina Lacroix

'We're talking about women's lives' | Life and style | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...women-northernireland

abortion pro-choice Northern-Ireland UK

shared by Marina Lacroix on 31 Oct 08 - Cached
  • the UK's 1967 Abortion Act was passed when Northern Ireland had its own parliament - and even after direct rule was imposed in the early 1970s the law was never extended. Now that could be about to change.
  • more than 50,000 women have had to leave Northern Ireland in search of abortions in the past 40 years - many in the later stages of pregnancies because of delays caused by financial hardship. In 2007 alone, it estimates, around 1,400 women fled, paying up to £2,500 each for clinic and travel costs
  • some women are so desperate they are buying abortion pills on the internet. She adds that, according to one survey of GPs in Northern Ireland, 11% "have seen the results of amateur abortions"
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • the louder anti-abortion voices "drown out" those of more moderate women and men who support the right to choose. "We are criminalising women and we have a situation where people are fearful of talking openly about abortion, never mind admitting to having one."
  • Les Reid of the Belfast Humanist Association, another pro-choice advocate, believes that for all the threats of constitutional crisis, the anti-abortion lobby's protestations may come to nothing in the long term. "The DUP and the Catholic church warned that gay rights would never be accepted in Northern Ireland, but time has proved them wrong," he says.
  • For Smith, an extension in the law can't come a moment too soon. "I understand that many people do not agree with abortion," she says. "That is their right and I respect it. But I don't see why they should be able to impose their views on me or any other woman
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