Women seeking abortions in Northern Ireland are still struggling to access services. Although abortion was legalised more than two months ago, claims persist that healthcare professionals are refusing to treat patients.
A leading reproductive rights group and a doctors’ organisation say that GPs are refusing to refer pregnant women to hospital services so they can access the tablets needed to undergo a medical abortion. They are also aware of midwives and nurses refusing to care for patients before and after the procedure.
As a result, women are ordering abortion pills online from European charities, travelling overseas during lockdown, or continuing with their unwanted pregnancy.
Naomi Connor, co-convener for Alliance For Choice, a leading reproductive rights group, says services have regressed to the worst level in 50 years as women are allegedly being denied care.
“We had a lady who went to her GP to get an abortion, and her GP refused to help her; she asked to see someone else in the practice, and the GP said ‘no one else will help you unless you’re keeping your pregnancy, and if you are, we’ll provide you with folic acid and pregnancy support, but otherwise, we won’t help you’.”
Connor said: “We know that obstructing abortions doesn’t stop abortions, it just makes them unsafe.
Dr Laura McLaughlin, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist from Doctors for Choice NI, said: “Some GPs have been very vocal about being obstructive towards either a service or any woman that comes to them for help [for an abortion].”
“There are also nurses and midwives that don’t want to be on the floor or in the room when something like that [an abortion] is happening. ”
Abortion was legalised on 31 March after a decades-long campaign. Terminations can now be carried out up to 12 weeks on request, and up to 24 weeks if the mother’s mental or physical health is jeopardised. In cases of fatal foetal abnormality or impairment, no time restrictions apply.
The Department for Health at Stormont has stated that it has received legal advice that, under the regulations, registered medical professionals in Northern Ireland may now terminate pregnancies lawfully on health and social care premises.
Some doctors have publicly declared their opposition to abortion under any circumstance. Dr Andrew Cupples, a GP, stated in a blogpost dated November 2019 that he would refuse to refer on a patient who wished to have an abortion, even in cases with a foetal abnormality: “Whenever a pregnant woman discovers that her child has downs, or a cleft palate, or tetralogy or spina bifida, and asks for an abortion, what do you do? Again, because there is no NI service, I believe that you are within your rights not to refer, even if there is a local obstetrician starting to take an interest in this work.”
He also stated that he would encourage a pregnant woman who wished to have an abortion to have a scan, look at it and “talk them through what’s going on with the baby’s body at that point”, then he would book her in to an early pregnancy clinic.
General Medical Council guidelines state that if doctors have a conscientious objection, patients must be told about their right to see another doctor, and arrangements should be made without delay so that the patient is treated.
Cupples told the Observer this weekend that “doctors are under no obligation to go against their objections and refer a patient for that service”.
