Nicola Sturgeon has told the Scottish parliament that the devolved government would explore the possibility of women from Northern Ireland obtaining terminations in Scotland’s health service for free.
Responding to a question from Green Party MSP Patrick Harvie on Thursday, the first minister said: “I am happy to explore with the NHS what the situation is now in terms of the ability of women from Northern Ireland to access safe and legal abortion in NHS Scotland and whether any improvements can be made.
“Like Patrick Harvie, I believe that women should have the right to choose, within the limits that are currently set down in law, and that that right should be defended.
“When a woman opts to have an abortion - I stress that that is never, ever an easy decision for any woman - the procedure should be available in a safe and legal way.”
The health service has so far refused to pay for abortions for women from Northern Ireland who travel to Britain for terminations.
The procedure is only available in Northern Ireland’s hospitals when there is a direct threat to the mother’s life if the pregnancy continues. In all other cases, it is illegal.
Harvie pointed out that women from Northern Ireland had to fund their own private terminations, which can cost from £400 to £2,000.
He asked Ms Sturgeon if she would “agree that the national health service in Scotland should be exploring what can be done to ensure that those women are able to access abortion in Scotland, if that is where they choose to travel to, without facing that kind of unacceptable financial barrier?”
The supreme court in London is currently considering an application from a Northern Irish teenager who, as a15-year-old, had to go to England to terminate a pregnancy.
She is challenging the NHS’s refusal to fund abortions for women from Northern Ireland.
Amnesty response
Amnesty International welcomed Ms Sturgeon’s offer.
Patrick Corrigan, its Northern Ireland programme director, said: “Given the utter human rights failure of Northern Ireland’s Ministers to provide free, safe and legal abortion healthcare for women and girls here, we welcome the commitment of Scotland’s first minister to explore what can be done via NHS Scotland.
“The UN human rights committee recently ruled that Northern Ireland’s laws prohibiting and criminalising abortion constitute a human rights violation.
“The Scottish government could help lessen the harsh financial impact of that violation by allowing women from Northern Ireland to access abortions free of charge on the NHS.”
Last November, a Northern Ireland High Court judge ruled that Northern Ireland’s abortion laws violated the rights of women and girls in cases of fatal foetal abnormalities or where a pregnancy was the result of a sexual crime.
An estimated 2,000 women a year have to raise the money to travel to private English clinics and hospitals from Northern Ireland to have terminations.
However, there is strong opposition to liberalising the province’s strict anti-abortion laws across the floor of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The Abortion Act, 1967, was never extended to Northern Ireland and an attempt to ease the law to include cases of fatal foetal abnormalities and pregnancy via sexual crime was rejected earlier this year.
Guardian service