Opinion

It's time to be pro-law on the abortion issue

Grainne Teggart, campaign manager of Amnesty International with Jane Christie, the mother of Sarah Scott. Picture by Ann McManus
Grainne Teggart, campaign manager of Amnesty International with Jane Christie, the mother of Sarah Scott. Picture by Ann McManus Grainne Teggart, campaign manager of Amnesty International with Jane Christie, the mother of Sarah Scott. Picture by Ann McManus

HERE'S a depressing, disturbing statistic.

In 2013, which is the most up to date figure available, the Department of Justice recorded 802 women who travelled from Northern Ireland to England to terminate a pregnancy.

The family planning association puts the annual figure at closer to 2000. The number of distressed women who take unregulated pills purchased over the internet is almost impossible to calculate.

Of those women who travelled to England in 2013 five were children, young girls under the age of 16. The year before that 16 children travelled to England, the year before that 19 children made the journey.

There is no legal way for a child to get pregnant, all pregnancies under the age of 16 are technically classed as statutory rape.

We don't know the back stories of those children, we don't know how many were exploited by older men or abused by a relative, we don't know how many of those pregnancies were as a result of rape.

What we do know is that over a three year period at least 40 children had to board a plane or a boat and cross the channel for a procedure that Mr Justice Horner - one of the most senior judges in the land - has ruled should have been available to them in Northern Ireland.

You don't need to be a woman or a mother to have empathy for those children, young girls who for a variety of reasons with immature minds and undeveloped bodies find themselves in a desperate and distressing position, forced into an adult world before their time.

But there are those who will never walk a day in their shoes who continue to not only judge but pontificate and impose their views on others, without stopping for one second to think how they are feeling.

I respect other people's faith, beliefs and values and feel they should be protected under law to live their lives according to the teaching of whatever church they belong to.

What I do not respect is those who feel that they can force those views onto others, not just in relation to how they live their lives but how they deal with the trauma caused by a crisis pregnancy.

I respect their opinion but there is a large section of the pro life movement - and I'm pained to call it that because we are all pro life and living - who fail to feel empathy or respect the rights of others. For them Monday's ruling should serve as a wake up call.

Those who stand outside the Marie Stopes clinic thrusting pictures of dead foetuses in the faces of distressed women need to realise it is they who are on the wrong side of the law.

How any right thinking person can justify the human rights abuse that is packing a 14-year-old off to England, away from her support structure. is beyond my comprehension.

Precious Life spokeswoman Bernie Smyth often speaks about the rights of the unborn child but what about the rights of the born child, what rights does a child victim of rape or sexual exploitation have in this world ruled by religious views that does not allow for the trials and tribulations of modern life or the harsh reality of some young people's world?

All the main parties in Stormont remain opposed to any extension of the 1967 Abortion Act in Northern Ireland, as do the main churches who continue to hold far too tight a grip on decision makers here.

But this ruling wasn't about extending the legislation but clarifying and providing legal cover to both women and doctors dealing with cases of fatal foetal abnormality and sexual crime.

Mr Justice Horner took over an hour to deliver his powerful and historically significant judgment.

He said "inaction" from the Department of Health, currently in the hands of the DUP, makes the prospect of a change in law on pregnancies caused by sexual crime "even more gloomy".

He also pointed to the inequality that exists in that those who can afford to legally travel to England to have terminations can do so while those who can't risk life in prison, both for them and any medic who consents to treat them.

Mr Justice Horner will give direction on the case later this month and depressingly there are already hints that it may be appealed, further dragging out the process.

But for now women have at least legal protection and doctors asked to carry out termination under the very restrictive guidelines are now aware that a high court judge has ruled that a refusal to treat is a breach of a woman's human rights.