There is no national health service for Northern Irish women. There is not, strictly, an NHS for Northern Ireland – instead, the region is covered by the body Health and Social Care, which provides social services as well as healthcare. But like the NHS in England, Scotland and Wales, the HSC was founded within the scope of the Beveridge report to provide medical treatment free at the point of use. Which it does, unless you are a woman who has use for an abortion, because the 1967 Abortion Act was never extended to Northern Ireland.
For Northern Irish women, terminations are only available in “highly exceptional circumstances”. These “highly exceptional circumstances” are undefined, but they do not include: rape, incest, homelessness, poverty, fatal foetal abnormalities, or in fact almost any of the reasons a woman may have for needing to end a pregnancy. In 2013, only 51 abortions were performed in Northern Ireland; meanwhile, over 1,000 women travelled to other parts of the UK in order to have what should be a simple, safe and legal procedure.
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