Women forced to take 8-hour trip for abortions despite pandemic

Northern Irish women seeking an abortion have been told they must take an 8-hour ferry to England despite the lockdown, as the regional government resists pressure to offer abortions locally and the coronavirus pandemic stops flights.

Abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland last year after the British parliament bypassed opposition from socially conservative Christian politicians in Belfast to bring the region into line with the rest of the United Kingdom, where abortion has been legal for decades.

But the regional health ministry missed an April 1 deadline to begin providing abortion just as the coronavirus pandemic complicated the government’s recommended back-up option of travelling to England for the procedure.

“We are in a worse position than we have ever been in,” said abortion rights activist Emma Campbell, co-chair of the Alliance for Choice group, which has seen a five-fold increase in calls for help since the travel restrictions were introduced. “Access is worse than it has been for over 50 years.”

One 39-year-old education worker from County Down who is seven weeks pregnant and seeking an abortion said she had been told by her local doctor that no provision had been set up to provide abortions in Northern Ireland.

“I was told I would have to take a ferry, take the pill in the clinic in the morning, then take the other pill and then get the ferry home,” she told Reuters.

What is happening to women in Northern Ireland is inhumane,” she said. “Having to sneak out to get to Liverpool is not what should be happening in 2020.”

The only British clinics currently available for women from Northern Ireland seeking publicly funded abortions are in Manchester and Liverpool, but no direct flights are available due to the coronavirus lock-down, activists say.