Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 6 - The Battle for Northern Ireland

  • Sally Sheldon, University of Bristol and University of Technology Sydney, Gayle Davis, University of Edinburgh, Jane O'Neill, University of Edinburgh, Clare Parker, University of Adelaide
  • Book:
    The Abortion Act 1967
    Published online:
    03 November 2022
    Print publication:
    17 November 2022, pp 190-222

  • Summary

    Chapter 6 focuses on that part of the UK that was omitted from the Abortion Act: Northern Ireland. We show that, notwithstanding this formal exclusion, the Abortion Act has played an important role in the region such that a biography of the Abortion Act necessarily offers the story of not just a British law but, rather, of a UK one. Over the past five decades, Northern Irish women have travelled in large numbers to access legal abortions in Britain, with the Act offering a ‘release valve’ that would limit the numbers of dangerous backstreet abortions and the mortality and morbidity that have driven reform elsewhere. Further, the Abortion Act would form a key focus of campaigns for and against abortion law reform within Northern Ireland; when reform eventually came, the Act would play a role in shaping it, and the reform of Northern Ireland’s abortion law has given significant momentum to the campaign for the decriminalisation of abortion.