The Labour MP Stella Creasy is leading another attempt to extend access to abortion to Northern Ireland, tabling an amendment arguing that the government is obliged to do this to comply with human rights obligations.
Up to 60 MPs from across different parties were expected to co-sign the amendment, according to the Walthamstow MP, who has tried in the past to change Northern Ireland’s notoriously strict abortion laws.
The 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, which makes obtaining or helping somebody obtain an abortion a criminal offence, is still applicable in Northern Ireland.
Last year the Republic of Ireland liberalised its abortion laws, but in Northern Ireland the long suspension of the devolved executive and assembly has obstructed any plans to do the same.
Creasy’s amendment would oblige ministers in Westminster to comply with their human rights obligation in Northern Ireland in relation to abortion, and thereby change a law that currently risks heavy jail sentences for women who have an abortion or medical staff who help them.
It notes that last year the UN committee on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women found the abortion laws meant women were “subjected to grave and systematic violations of rights through being compelled to either travel outside Northern Ireland to procure a legal abortion or to carry their pregnancy to term”.
Last year about 1,000 women from Northern Ireland travelled to England or Wales for an abortion.
Following the Irish referendum on abortion in 2018, Northern Ireland is the only place in the UK and Ireland – and most of Europe – where terminations are outlawed apart from in the most exceptional circumstances.
The UK Abortion Act of 1967 was never extended to Northern Ireland, and abortion remains illegal unless the life or mental health of the mother is at risk. Northern Ireland has the harshest criminal penalty for abortion anywhere in Europe; in theory, life imprisonment can be handed down to a woman undergoing an unlawful abortion, under Victorian legislation dating back to 1861.
Fatal foetal abnormalities and conceptions by rape or incest are not lawful grounds for a termination.
Most politicians in Northern Ireland – Catholic and Protestant – do not favour reform, despite the UN saying the UK was violating the rights of women in Northern Ireland by restricting their access to abortion.
Both Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, who are competing to replace Theresa May as prime minister, have ruled out intervention from Westminster to change the law in Northern Ireland, prompting pro-choice campaigners to accuse them of pandering to religious fundamentalists in the Democratic Unionist party.
Earlier this week the women and equalities minister, Penny Mordaunt, said rapid action was needed.
Mordaunt, speaking to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, said: “I think paucity of care that women have endured in Northern Ireland is the most appalling thing and it must change.”
Creasy’s proposed amendment will be added to a bill due in the Commons next week concerned with amending budgets and planned elections for the Stormont assembly, which has been suspended amid political deadlock since January 2017.
Another Labour MP, Conor McGinn, is planning to seek to target the same bill with a cross-party amendment aimed at changing the law in Northern Ireland on same-sex marriage. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that does not have equal marriage.
Those signed up to Creasy’s amendment include MPs from Labour, the Liberal Democrats, independents, Conservatives, the Green party and the Scottish National party.
Creasy said: “According to the UN, women in Northern Ireland face ‘grave and systematic’ human rights violations because we treat them as second-class citizens and deny them their basic human right not to be forced to continue an unwanted pregnancy.
“It’s time this government stopped hiding behind devolution to defend this situation and please the DUP. Again – not just what I think: the United Nations says they can’t use devolution as an excuse for this disgraceful situation.
“With women facing jail now in Northern Ireland and no sign of an assembly anytime soon at Stormont, this vote is a chance for parliament to uphold our human rights obligations and treat every woman in the UK with equal respect by ensuring they can access a safe, legal and local abortion if they want to do so.”
