Since the 1967 Abortion Act women in Northern Ireland have been denied the right to an abortion. The Northern Irish MPs secured this exemption in return for abstaining from the vote on the reform act. As a result, in 2012 4850 women travelled from Northern Ireland to secure a termination in England or Wales.

This failure to apply the law equally would seem to be a serious denial of justice, rights and equality. Amnesty International’s report says: “Ireland’s abortion regime violates the fundamental human rights of women and girls, including their rights to life, health, equality, non-discrimination, privacy, information and freedom from torture and other ill-treatment”.

Since a 2014 court case, Irish women cannot have a termination on the NHS. So each is forced to pay between £800 and £900 for a flight, accommodation and abortion costs at a private clinic such as Marie Stopes. Notice how the poor always bear the brunt of unjust laws – richer people find ways of avoiding its harsh effects.

It follows that if you are raped in Northern Ireland, you can’t automatically get an abortion even though in a 1938 a test case involved a 15 year old rape victim, the judge ruled that an abortion was allowable in such circumstances.

If you are pregnant and find out, after a 20 week scan, that the foetus you’re carrying has a serious abnormality and will soon die in your womb, you can’t legally get an abortion.

This week the top court in Ireland is considering whether the human rights of such women have been violated. Surely in a moral community we should all enjoy equal protection of the law and equal rights to its provisions. To exclude a minority of the population because of the religious views of the minority would seem to me to be wholly wrong – and we can follow this case with interest.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/she-said/2014/may/14/northern-irelands-abortion-laws-are-outmoded-and-oppressive