A NORTHERN Ireland woman who performed a DIY abortion because she could not afford to travel to a clinic in England has been given a three-month suspended prison sentence at Belfast Crown Court.
Had the woman been anywhere else in the UK, her defence said, she would “not have found herself before the courts”.
The woman, who cannot be named due to a court order, was charged under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, for ordering and taking two types of drug that caused her to miscarry.
The 150- year-old Victorian legislation has been amended in England, Scotland and Wales, but the conservative and religious politics of Northern Ireland means that abortion is one of the areas where few hardline Unionist and nationalists are in agreement.
The woman gave herself the abortion on July 12, 2014.
She pleaded guilty to two charges, procuring her own abortion by using a poison, and of supplying a poison with intent to procure a miscarriage.
It was the woman’s housemates who, on July 20, told police she had bought the drugs and had carried out the miscarriage. Officers from the Police Service of Northern Ireland then searched the flat, finding a foetus in a black bag in the household bin.
A post-mortem confirmed that the foetus had come from the women and was between 10 to 12 weeks.
Crown prosecutor Kate McKay explained that the woman had moved into the house in South Belfast two months previously, telling the new housemates she was pregnant and was trying to raise funds to travel to England for an abortion.
The woman then claims that when she realised she was unable to afford the travel she phoned a clinic in England who recommended taking drugs mifepristone and misoprostol.
The day after the woman caused the miscarriage, her housemates found both blood-stained items and the foetus in the bin.
McKay said the housemates were “taken aback by the seemingly blasé attitude” adopted by the woman and after a week contacted the PSNI.
The woman’s defence barrister Paul Bacon said at the time his client was 19, isolated, and felt trapped, with no option but to turn to “such desperate measures”.
Judge David McFarland said he had never come across a case like it.
He was also critical of agencies in Northern Ireland who are supposed to advise people in the woman’s situation: “Unfortunately they are part of a polarised debate that can be part of a more toxic debate,” he said.
The sentence was suspended for two years. Politicians in Stormont defeated plans to change Northern Ireland’s abortion law in February. The country laws are some of the most restrictive in Europe, with a near-total ban even in cases of rape, incest, or when the foetus won’t survive after birth.
Women and doctors who do carry out terminations in Northern Ireland risk life imprisonment.
This is despite 68 per cent of people living in Northern Ireland being in favour of change.
Amnesty International Northern Ireland Director Patrick Corrigan said: “We’re utterly appalled by the court’s decision to impose a suspended prison sentence on this woman.
“A woman who needs an abortion is not a criminal. The law should not treat her as such.
“By denying access to healthcare services, Northern Ireland is violating women and girls’ human rights, as has now been established in Belfast’s High Court.
“Instead of sanctioning women and girls for seeking the healthcare they need, the Northern Ireland Executive should lead the way in reforming abortion laws to bring them into line with international standards.”
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