Northern Ireland: Midwives speak out against lack of abortion guidance

Midwives in Northern Ireland are threatening to stop performing emergency abortions because of fears they are vulnerable to criminal prosecution.

The Royal College of Midwives has spoken out after the assembly rejected proposed guidelines on terminations at the end of 2007, reported the UK Guardian. This has left no legal framework to support the procedure, and means that health workers opposed to abortion have no legal right to object.

The dismissal of the guidance, ordered under a court of appeal ruling in 2006, was led by the anti-abortion Democratic Unionist party, leaving Northern Ireland as the only part of the UK were the 1967 Abortion Act does not apply.

Breedagh Hughes, of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) in Northern Ireland, said her 1,300 members were in a state of fear:

‘They are in an invidious position on two fronts. Firstly, those midwives who oppose abortion have no rights under law to conscientious objection. Under the 1967 act they do have that right.

‘Perhaps more serious still is that any of our members in Northern Ireland who take part in terminations are vulnerable to criminal prosecution. As things stand any woman who in the future regretted a termination could come back at the medical team that carried out that abortion. She could in the current circumstances have that medical team charged under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. They could face criminal charges.’

Hughes said the number of terminations in Northern Ireland hospitals was far higher than the official figure of about 80 a year. Emergency terminations are allowed if a woman’s life is in immediate danger. Hughes said most of Northern Ireland’s terminations took place at about 20 weeks, which is when severe abnormalities would show up in a scan:

‘These women are in no fit condition to travel to England and have an abortion there. They have to have the termination here.’

The British Medical Association supports the extension of the 1967 act to Northern Ireland, although the Northern Ireland branch has no position on the issue.

Dr Audrey Simpson, the FPA’s director in Northern Ireland, criticised the local BMA for failing to take a stance on the question:

‘Even in the Irish Republic there are pro-choice forums among doctors, and that is in a society where abortion is completely illegal.’

She said whether a woman had to travel to Britain or was allowed an emergency abortion in Northern Ireland depended entirely on arbitrary decisions by individual doctors.

Michael McGimpsey, the Northern Ireland health minister, said that redrafted guidelines would be drawn up and put to the Stormont health committee in the first half of this year.

Ulster midwives may refuse to carry out emergency abortions. Guardian, 28 January 2008