Amnesty International UK

Amnesty International UK This week, a woman in the UK was dealt a suspended prison sentence for having an abortion. It’s 2016, and a part of the UK has among the harshest abortion laws in Europe. This week, a 21-year-old woman in Belfast was given a suspended prison sentence for taking an abortion pill.  Meanwhile, a mother faces the prospect of up to life imprisonment for procuring abortion pills for her pregnant teenage daughter. There is a near-total ban on abortion in Northern Ireland – even where the woman is pregnant as a result of rape or incest, or where the foetus will not survive. This needs to stop.

Dear Pedro, I need your help. This week has shown that courts in Northern Ireland are willing to uphold the country’s rights-denying laws and publicly punish women for decisions that should be a private matter for women and their doctors. Today, a woman in Northern Ireland can be served a life sentence in prison for having an abortion.  Call on Northern Ireland to stop treating women like criminals We need to send a strong message to politicians in Northern Ireland that it is not right to imprison women for seeking a health service that would be freely provided on the NHS if they lived elsewhere in the UK. We need to show the Northern Ireland authorities that they urgently need to change their laws – before more women are criminalised, forced to travel, left to suffer alone. Please sign: Ask Northern Ireland to decriminalise abortion At the end of last year, a Belfast court ruled that the application of Northern Ireland’s abortion law contravenes a woman’s rights. Politicians must urgently bring the country’s abortion laws in line with human rights standards and stop punishing women for using abortion services. Call on Northern Ireland to take urgent action and stop denying women their rights Instead of getting the healthcare they need, women are being forced to carry the pregnancy to term or to travel to England or elsewhere, with no regard for the psychological or physical impact on them or their families. Midwives and doctors also face the threat of life imprisonment for involvement in terminations. The criminalisation of abortion does not stop women needing abortions. It simply means that women and girls who can’t afford to travel take abortion pills without effective medical supervision or support. I urgently need you to help send a strong message to the politicians of Northern Ireland that we cannot allow these rights-denying laws to continue punishing women for trying to access healthcare that should be readily available to them. Sign the petition to change Northern Ireland’s abortion laws Thanks, Sara Rydkvist Priority Campaign Manager Amnesty International UK