Teen, mother lose challenge against United Kingdom abortion ruling

The Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland today has turned down the request of a teenage girl and her mother who wanted to travel to England for an abortion and have it paid for by the National Health Service (NHS).

The case was brought by A and her mother, referred to as B, who travelled from Northern Ireland to Manchester for A’s abortion.

The rules lead to up to 2,000 women travelling to secure an abortion each year, according to abortion rights campaigners, but those who go elsewhere in the United Kingdom have to pay around hundreds of pounds for the procedure, on top of travel and accommodation for the trip, so long as they can not have them on the NHS.

Abortions are illegal in Northern Ireland except in extreme cases when a woman’s life is deemed at risk from her pregnancy.

But he ruled that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s duty to promote a comprehensive health service in England “is a duty in relation to the physical and mental health of the people of England”, and that duty did not extend “to persons who are ordinarily resident in Northern Ireland”.

Three judges on Wednesday upheld a previous High Court decision ruling that the teenager wasn’t entitled to a state-funded abortion in England.

Following the judgment, the women’s lawyer, Angela Jackman from the law firm Simpson Millar, said they were considering taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Instead, he found that there was no reason to think that this was a discrimination case since the 1967 Act does not apply in Northern Ireland. That said, the challenges to the protection of unborn life continue.

Lawful abortions were only available in rare, highly exceptional circumstances in Northern Ireland, which did not include, for example, rape, incest or foetal abnormality.

Sarah Ewart’s legal bid to overturn the abortion ban is backed by the Northern Ireland human rights commission.

The judge, in his ruling, said that devolutionary powers have to be taken into consideration.

Around 2,000 women travel to English hospitals and clinics from Northern Ireland every year to have terminations.

The mother said the knowledge they could have received an abortion for free would have “reduced the trauma and stress” for them both.