Abortion Law In Northern Ireland

EDM number 822 in 1994-95, proposed by Harry Barnes on 14/03/1995.

That this House agrees with the recommendations recently made to the Government by the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights that the law on abortion in Northern Ireland is so uncertain that it violates the standards of human rights law; believes that there are serious inconsistencies in its application which mean that even a woman whose pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or whose health would be seriously damaged by continuing the pregnancy cannot be guaranteed an abortion; further believes that the difference in the abortion laws which apply to women in Northern Ireland and women in the rest of the United Kingdom amounts to discrimination against, and causes unnecessary suffering to, women in the Province particularly the 2,000 pregnant women who travel to Britain each year to access abortion services; welcomes the publication of the report, The Abortion Law in Northern Ireland: Human Rights and Reproductive Choice, by the Northern Ireland Family Planning Association and the meeting to launch it in the House on 23rd March in room W1 at 5.30 pm; and strongly urges the Government to resolve the anomaly in the Northern Ireland abortion law by extending the Abortion Act 1967 to the Province.

This motion has been signed by a total of 76 MPs, 1 of these signatures have been withdrawn.