The law does not extend to Northern Ireland, where abortion was illegal unless the doctor acted “solely to save the life of the mother” or if the continuation of the pregnancy would have resulted in the pregnant woman becoming a “physical or mental wreck”. The situation was the same as in England before the introduction of the Abortion Act 1967. Transportation was abolished by the Penal Servitude Act of 1857, which replaced it with the punitive easement. Section 6 of the 1837 Act was replaced by section 58 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which remains the principal legislation for prosecuting bodily harm in the courts of England and Wales and has been enacted elsewhere in the British Empire. In addition, section 59 of the Act created a new prerogatory offence of procuring drugs or devices with intent to induce an abortion. In order to comply with the law, we ask you why you want to have an abortion. Your answers will not affect the care you receive. According to historian Sally Sheldon, although the abortion bill was passed because of “advocacy for public health and equality, liberalisation of the issue of abortion, and thus for the benefit of British women”, reproductive autonomy was not placed at the heart of the law. Sheldon points out that during the debates on the bill, which subsequently became the abortion law, reformers were firmly behind the idea that doctors were in the best position to decide whether an abortion was justified or not. Even ordering drugs to induce an abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland, with long prison sentences for anyone caught doing so. The abortion law stipulates that two doctors must approve abortions and agree that it would be better for the woman`s physical or mental health to terminate the pregnancy. Sex-selective abortions are illegal, but the law is unclear as to whether a woman`s economic and social environment is a reasonable reason for an abortion.
The doctor who approves the procedure must decide whether the woman`s physical or mental health will be affected by carrying the baby to term. 190,800 abortions were reported in England and Wales in 2013. 0.2% less than in 2012; 185,331 resided in England and Wales. The Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020 were submitted to Parliament on 25 March 2020 and came into force on 31 March 2020. [96] [97] The regulations permitted abortions in Northern Ireland in the following circumstances: Most abortions are performed during the first trimester of pregnancy, resulting in miscarriage by a combination of medications. Medical abortions use mifepristone and misoprostol during the first ten weeks of pregnancy. Before 2018, women had to take both pills 24 to 48 hours apart in a clinic to terminate their pregnancy, which seriously threatened their independence and health. In Northern Ireland, abortion is permitted for similar reasons, although the law also permits abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy for any reason,[6] as is the case in the Republic of Ireland. [7] The methodology is linked to time. A medical abortion can be performed up to the ninth week (mifepristone was approved in the United Kingdom in 1991); from the seventh to the fifteenth week, vacuum aspiration or vacuum aspiration is the most common (largely replacing the more harmful dilation and curettage technique); For the fifteenth to eighteenth week, surgical dilation and evacuation are the most common.
About 30% of abortions are performed medically. [140] Health, welfare, and criminal justice policies were transferred to the Northern Ireland Parliament when the Abortion Act was passed in Westminster in 1967, and Parliament did not introduce abortion legislation until it was suspended in 1972. The law was kept unchanged under the Conservative and Labour governments and the first Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973-1974, although the law was interpreted by local court case law (in the 1990s) to also identify the reasons for a “risk of real and serious adverse effects on”. [The woman`s] physical or mental health is either long-term or permanent. From 1983, the Irish Constitution, which covered the Republic with a territorial claim over Northern Ireland until 1998, recognised “the right to life of the unborn child and, with due regard to the mother`s equal right to life” and “guaranteed in its laws to respect that right and, as far as practicable, by its laws, to defend and defend this right”. [45] In the fifties, support for reform increased. In the 1960s, fertility control spread with the growth of the women`s movement and the availability of the birth control pill. However, illegal abortion still kills or ruins the health of many women. ALRA led the campaign for MP David Steel`s bill to legalize abortion. Abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in 2019 and regulations came into force in March 2020 introducing a new legal framework for abortion services in Northern Ireland. The Abortion Act stipulated that abortions had to take place in NHS hospitals or other licensed clinics.
It was also expected that the NHS would give specific advice. Congregations and members of major non-Christian religions in the UK also provide pastoral support in a variety of ways to women, families and children whose situation is affected by unwanted pregnancies and abortion. Views on morality and possible reasons for abortion vary within Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. The Abortion Act 1967 originally permitted abortion “by a licensed medical practitioner if two licensed medical officers are of good faith opinion,” for the following reasons: Abortion in the UK is de facto available through the UK Abortion Act 1967 and the Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020 (No. 2).
