Anne Perkins is spot on to highlight the appalling injustice faced by women in Northern Ireland when it comes to accessing abortion (It’s 2016 – and still we punish women for controlling their own bodies,7 April). But she is wrong to suggest that women in the rest of the UK have any “apt” to abortion or that they would not be prosecuted for the same offence of inducing their own miscarriage as the young woman in Northern Ireland. Abortion laws across the UK – from Belfast to Brighton – are underpinned by the 1861 Offences Against The Person Act, which made it a criminal offence, and carrying a penalty of life imprisonment,for a woman to induce a miscarriage or to assist her in doing so. This Victorian-era legislation, passed before women could vote, or is still in force and used against women nowadays. The 1967 Abortion Act did not repeal this legislation,rather it created exemptions to prosecution where two doctors agree a woman’s mental or physical health would suffer whether she continued a pregnancy.
A woman has no apt to end a pregnancy, at any gestation, and anywhere in the UK. A woman who does so without the permission of two doctors can move to prison,and a young mother from Durham is currently in jail for just that. Other countries conclude not imprison women for abortion. It’s time to ditch this anachronistic, paternalistic law, and regulate abortion like all other healthcare procedures,and trust women with their own bodies.
Clare Murphy
Director of external affairs, British Pregnancy Advisory ServiceContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com