Northern Ireland’s Abortion Laws Have Negative Consequences for Women’s Health and Wellbeing

Abstract

Abortion is not legal in Northern Ireland, except to preserve a pregnant woman’s life or to prevent permanent damage to her physical or mental health. Despite this, women who live in Northern Ireland have abortions. Unless they qualify for one of the few legal exceptions, women obtain a clinic-based abortion by traveling to a country where abortion is legal or they use telemedicine to access medications to self-manage an abortion at home. Reporting on 30 in-depth interviews with women living in Northern Ireland, PRC faculty research associate Abigail R.A. Aiken, undergraduate student Elisa Padron and PRC graduate student trainees Kathleen Broussard and Dana Johnson show that Northern Irish women experience travel barriers, fear and anxiety surrounding the criminalization of self-managed abortion, and a breakdown of the doctor-patient relationship that isolates women and prevents them from seeking care and support through the Northern Irish healthcare system.