Theresa May doesn't care about women's rights in Northern Ireland – she's only interested in saving her own skin
It wasn’t until faced with the prospect of a likely defeat in the Commons, and an awkward situation for their DUP allies, that the Government agreed to allow Northern Irish women to access free abortions in the UK
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Your support makes all the difference.Today’s U-turn on funding abortions for Northern Irish women demonstrates just how unstable the Theresa May’s Government really is.
In a dramatic departure from previous policy, Justine Greening, the Minister for Equalities, has today written to MPs to tell them that the Government will fund abortions for Northern Irish women in England in order to avoid an embarrassing defeat on the issue in a vote scheduled for this evening. Several Tory ministers had backed Stella Creasy’s cross-party amendment to the Queen’s Speech calling on NHS England to fund abortions for Northern Irish women, which would have left the Conservatives’ new partners in a very uncomfortable position.
For those of us campaigning for reproductive rights across Ireland, today was already a very busy day. This morning’s disappointing decision by the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal ruled that abortion law is the responsibility of the devolved assembly at Stormont – which is still unable to form a government. While this case focused on abortions on grounds of fatal foetal abnormality and sexual crime, neither of which count as legal grounds for an abortion in Northern Ireland, there are many reasons why people choose to end a pregnancy.
For these women, the only legal option is to travel to Great Britain and pay up to £1,400 for an abortion here. As highlighted by the A & B case in the Supreme Court last week, those who travel from Northern Ireland, despite being UK taxpayers, aren’t eligible for NHS funding for these abortions under current law – something which Stella Creasy’s amendment sought to change.
While the details of the arrangement for this funding are yet to emerge, it appears that it will be financed by the Department for Equalities, rather than the Department of Health. The Family Planning Association this week published a letter to Jeremy Hunt, co-signed by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and a number of MPs and Northern Irish Members of the Legislative Assembly which laid out a fully costed care pathway to fund these abortions, but it wasn’t until faced with the prospect of a likely defeat in the Commons that the government agreed to end this discrimination.
It feels strange that we should cheer such a concession when there are still Northern Irish women currently awaiting trial for ending a pregnancy: those with visa restrictions, in controlling or coercive relationships, or with health problems are still unable to make this journey. Everyone should be able to access free, safe, legal and local abortion, and groups like Alliance for Choice and the London Irish Abortion Rights Campaign will continue to work to that end.
But nevertheless, today is a victory. The new policy will make a tangible and significant difference to the lives of thousands of women, and that should be celebrated. But it’s a damning indictment of the current government that this decision was taken to save their own skins, when the alternative course would damage their relationship with the DUP, and not out of respect for the bodily autonomy of the citizens of Northern Ireland.
Caitlin de Jode is a member of the London-Irish Abortion Rights Campaign
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