Hundreds protest Northern Ireland's abortion ban after woman is convicted
LONDON -- A huge crowd of people rallied outside Belfast's Public Prosecution Service on Thursday evening protesting the prosecution of a Northern Irish woman who bought abortion pills online when she was a teenager.
The "Not a Criminal" protest, organised by abortion rights group Alliance for Choice and Belfast Feminist Network and supported by Amnesty International Northern Ireland, comes after the 21-year-old woman was handed a suspended prison sentence for breaking Northern Ireland's anti-abortion law.
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It also comes after a second woman appeared in court this week, charged with buying abortion pills for her daughter who was a minor at the time.
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 is part of the United Kingdom.
In a Facebook post, Belfast Feminist Network called on followers to join the protest.
"The woman who was sentenced on Monday and the woman awaiting trial should not be before the courts," read the post.
"Abortion should be a health matter, not a justice one. Our abortion law is unworkable! It needs to change!" the post continued.
Amnesty’s Northern Ireland Director Patrick Corrigan told Belfast Live that the protest was part of a groundswell of public opinion that believes Northern Ireland's abortion law needs to be changed.
“The rally was sending a message out that women need access to terminations and should not be criminalised for that. The law needs to be changed," Corrigan said.
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Following Thursday's protest, Amnesty International launched an online petition calling on Northern Ireland Assembly leaders to bring the existing law in line with international human rights laws; to stop the criminalisation of women and girls who have abortions; and to make abortion legal in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal impairment.
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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.
