Second woman faces possible jail sentence in Northern Ireland over abortion pills
LONDON -- A second woman charged with breaking Northern Ireland's abortion law has appeared in court this week, after buying abortion pills for her teenage daughter.
The woman -- who cannot be named for legal reasons -- appeared at Belfast Crown Court on Wednesday morning, charged with helping her daughter -- who was a minor at the time -- to have an abortion.
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The woman -- who will appear in court again later this month -- faces up to life in prison, which is the maximum sentence under Northern Ireland's abortion ban, which makes it a criminal offence to have an abortion or help someone else to have one.
Women in England, Scotland and Wales have access to free, safe, legal abortions, but 1967's Abortion Act, which makes abortion legal in Britain, does not extend to Northern Ireland, which forms part of the United Kingdom.
This comes after a 21-year-old woman was handed a suspended sentence after buying abortion pills online because she could not afford to travel to England for an abortion.
According to the Irish News, two more cases are currently being considered by the Public Prosecution Service after files were forwarded by the Northern Ireland's police service.
A spokesperson for Amnesty International told Mashable that it is calling for an urgent reform to Northern Ireland's abortion laws, starting with lifting the ban on abortions in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormalities.
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Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
