Baffling how northern Ireland didnt changed their abortion laws till 2019

[Footloosefancyfree]

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/tv/what-three-families-bbc-about-20564637

Watching the story of three families and its astonishing how far behind the times Northern Ireland were in regards to abortion. The legalisation finally passed in only 2019 up until then you could be prosecuted and put into jail regardless if it the pregnancy occurred because of incest, rape or abnormalities, the legalisation occur in England in the late sixties.

[2bazookas]

@toocoldforsno

It's not even slightly baffling if you have the first clue about Northern Ireland.

Exactly.

I could SCREAM that so many younger women are so ignorant of our own recent history.

[pointythings]

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

That is why many abortion rights people like the maxim ' as early as possible, as late as necessary'... It covers the fact that the foetus isn't as developed early on, while acknowledging there may be delays that were not in control. Plus allowing women time to think about their decision properly.

This. Perfectly put.

[TheKeatingFive]

I wonder if the availability (with difficulty, obviously) of terminations across the water actually helped keep the ban in place? As it was kind of, well if you really must you can always get on a boat?

Oh absolutely. It would have been a lot harder to pretend it wasn't a problem if women had ended up in backstreet establishments. Having mainland UK pick up the slack totally suited the powers that be.

[newnortherner111]

I recall Mark Thomas highlighting this about 15 years ago. The DUP have never hid from their religious background or views, perhaps the surprise is that the laws were never changed during periods of direct rule earlier.

[FromHereToModernity]

@TheKeatingFive

I wonder if the availability (with difficulty, obviously) of terminations across the water actually helped keep the ban in place? As it was kind of, well if you really must you can always get on a boat?

Oh absolutely. It would have been a lot harder to pretend it wasn't a problem if women had ended up in backstreet establishments. Having mainland UK pick up the slack totally suited the powers that be.

Absolutely spot on. All those trips to Liverpool on the ferry, the Easyjet and Ryanair and FlyBe flights to London airports, the 'little shopping holidays' while people turned a blind eye to the massive fucking problem in front of them ...

All the fundraising in the rest of the UK and Ireland for travel fares and B&B ...

All in plain sight.

[blubberyboo]

When you consider that NI has spent all the time since 1967 either in the middle of a civil war or emerging through a peace process then it’s not surprising at all.

After all women and children always suffer the most from war.

The peace process has been like walking on a tightrope for the last 23 years with almost everything turning into a political agenda.
Fear politics makes people vote for extreme green or orange parties and those parties have extreme views.
Sinn Fein changed s their approach towards abortion but they lost a lot of older catholic voters.
The moderate parties are more liberal on such matters and closely aligned with younger voters who don’t carry as much hurt from the past, but they aren’t yet strong enough to get these types of issues through fast enough.

Progress is happening though on many issues and I believe many people hold personal views that abortion should be more widely available, they just don’t talk about it loudly enough in communities as those opposed tend to shout louder.