What is your attitude to complete prohibition of pregnancy termination in Northern Ireland?
- Positive, abortion is murder, it should be criminalized
- 50/50, abortion should be permitted in the case of rape and deadly threat to the mother’s health and/or the fetus
- Negatively, a woman should have the right to decide independently whether or not to give birth
- Difficult to say
Three appellate courts refused to legalize abortions in Northern Ireland hospitals in cases where women became pregnant after being raped or the pregnancy is doomed due to a fatal anomaly of the embryo. The UK Department of Justice and Attorney General John Larkin appealed against the almost total prohibition of abortion in Northern Ireland after the Supreme Court ruling that it violates the European Convention on Human Rights. But the Belfast Court transferred responsibility for any changes to the strict regime of abortion in the region to Parliament. In Northern Ireland, someone who makes illegal abortions can get life imprisonment, so many women go outside of Ireland to have an abortion. In turn, the United Nations has issued a report stating that the prohibition of abortion in Northern Ireland discriminates against women and degrades human dignity. With this in mind, the United Nations has urged Northern Ireland to legitimize the practice of abortion and to provide modern procedures for abortion.
So, what is your attitude to complete prohibition of pregnancy termination in Northern Ireland