Northern Irish woman launches legal bid to overturn abortion ban

Northern Irish woman launches legal bid to overturn abortion ban

Challenge by Sarah Ewart, who was forced to have an abortion in England, is backed by Northern Ireland human rights commission

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Sarah Ewart, 24, from Belfast, travelled to England to have an abortion in 2013 after being told her unborn baby had no chance of survival.


A Northern Irish woman who travelled to England to have an abortion is launching a court challenge to the almost total ban on terminations in the region’s hospitals. Sarah Ewart’s legal bid to overturn the abortion ban is backed by the Northern Ireland human rights commission. The commission wants abortion to be legalised Northern Ireland in cases of rape, incest or serious malformation of a foetus.

Speaking before her case in Belfast high court, Ewart said the experience of having to go to England while 20 weeks pregnant for an abortion was “a living nightmare”. She decided to go to England for the termination in 2013 after her baby had been diagnosed with anencephaly, a condition in which the brain has not developed.

Ewart said: “I am an ordinary woman who suffered a very personal family tragedy, which the law in Northern Ireland turned into a living nightmare. I was told that my baby was likely to die before being born or shortly afterwards. All I kept thinking was, ‘Our baby has no brain, she cannot liv.’

“I simply could not face it, but the law in Northern Ireland meant I had no option but to go to England and take myself away from the care of the doctors and midwife who knew me. I was 23 years old and totally devastated.

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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/15/northern-irish-abortion-ban-sarah-ewart-legal-challenge