Northern Irish woman was reported to police by GP over abortion pills

A Northern Irish woman who was prosecuted for obtaining abortion pills for her underage pregnant daughter was reported to police by a GP, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service has revealed.

Launching an information campaign in Northern Ireland aimed at helping women access safe abortion medication and follow-up services, the BPAS said that a climate of fear over such prosecutions was risking lives in the region.

Last week, the mother won the right to challenge the decision to prosecute her for procuring the abortion pills for her daughter, who was 15 at the time.

BPAS said cases such as these would deter women from seeking follow-up care when needed for fear that they will face criminal sanction.

The charity stressed that no healthcare professional is obliged to report anyone who accesses the abortion pills in the province. Despite this BPAS confirmed that it was a GP who reported the mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, over buying the abortion pills for her child.

In Northern Ireland, the maximum penalty for the crime of administering a drug to induce miscarriage under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 is life imprisonment.

Except in cases where there is a direct threat to a mother’s life, almost all abortions are banned in Northern Ireland’s hospitals.

Ann Furedi, BPAS chief executive, said: “We have launched this information campaign today not to encourage women to break the law but in recognition that this is happening. Northern Ireland’s strict abortion law means women determined to end a pregnancy but who cannot travel must turn to online pills. These women are no less deserving of follow-up care and support than the women we see in our clinics.

“Recent court proceedings have sent out a deeply worrying message – that women are not able to speak openly and honestly with their clinicians. Those who are driving the prosecutions have created a damaging climate of fear for women and those caring for them.”

Furedi said BPAS had launched a 24-hour information hotline to help women in Northern Ireland access safe abortion pills.

She said: “We know that there are women who are in need of care but afraid to access help. So today we want to send a clear message: if you have taken abortion pills and need advice, we are here for you, 24 hours a day, every day.”

Last year, pro-choice campaigners used a drone that was flown across the Irish Sea to deliver abortion pills to women in Northern Ireland.

In April last year, a 21-year-old woman received a one-year suspended sentence at Belfast crown court for procuring her own abortion by using a poison, and of supplying a poison with intent to procure a miscarriage. The court was told she had been arrested after her flatmates in Belfast reported her.

Two years ago, the UN’s human rights committee said the severe restrictions on terminations in the region were putting Northern Irish women’s lives at risk.

An estimated 2,000 women travel to English hospitals and clinics from Northern Ireland every year to have terminations. There is strong opposition to liberalising the province’s strict anti-abortion laws across the floor of the Northern Ireland assembly.

The 1967 Abortion Act was never extended to Northern Ireland and all the main local political parties oppose it.

Northern Irish woman was reported to police by GP over abortion pills

Sturgeon confirms Scottish talks on free abortions for Northern Irish women

Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that the Scottish government is to explore how to allow Northern Irish women to obtain free access to abortions in Scotland’s NHS hospitals.

Scotland’s first minister, during a visit to Dublin on Tuesday, said that the Edinburgh devolved government would hold talks with the Scottish NHS that may enable women from Northern Ireland to have terminations for free on the health service.

Across the UK, the NHS has so far refused to pay for abortions for women from Northern Ireland who travel to Britain. The procedure is only available in Northern Ireland’s hospitals when the pregnancy poses a direct threat to the mother’s life. It is illegal in all other cases.

Last week. Patrick Harvie MSP, the leader of the Green party in the Scottish parliament, said it can cost between £400 and £2,000 for a woman from Northern Ireland to obtain an abortion at a private clinic in Britain.

The supreme court in London is considering an application from a Northern Irish teenager, who, as a 15-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.

Sturgeon said: “I was asked a question specifically in parliament about the scenario where a woman from Northern Ireland chooses to access an abortion in Scotland and whether they should be charged for that or not.

“Now I said that we would explore that, so we are looking in terms of the process and will discuss with the NHS what would happen now routinely, and whether there are options to change that, to make the process safer for the women concerned.

“My view is that if a woman is going to access an abortion then the important thing is that it is as safe as possible … I am not putting a timescale on it but I will report back to parliament in due course.”

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 from both unionist and nationalist members of the Northern Ireland assembly to liberalising the province’s strict anti-abortion laws. 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 this year.

Sturgeon was speaking at an event organised by IBEC, the Irish employers’ organisation, on the second day of her official visit to Ireland. Later on Tuesday she will become the first leader of Scotland to address the Irish parliament when she will deliver a speech in its upper house, the Seanad.

Before her lunchtime speech, Sturgeon said she would press London to retain an open border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and this was central to her discussions with the British government over the impact of Brexit.

“It is absolutely essential to maintain an open border … It is important to emphasise the unique status of Ireland, the peace process and the Good Friday agreement, and keeping an open border. Out of all of the things that we no doubt find disagreements on in terms of Brexit – what does it mean and what paths the UK take – I would hope that something everybody in the UK and also in the European Union can agree on is that there has to be solutions found to avoid some of the implications of Brexit for the island of Ireland,” she said.

She also addressed what she called the “ill will” that exists between London and Brussels since the EU referendum.

Sturgeon said: “I don’t think ill will on this is inevitable but I think it will occur if the UK continues to display the kind of attitude towards this whole situation that it has been doing. But I don’t think ill will is inevitable and that is related to the issue of a plan. If the UK gets itself into a position that is clear, reasonable about what it’s trying to achieve then there may be scope to have a relatively harmonious process that delivers a compromise position.

“There is no plan at present and anyone who tries to suggest otherwise is just indulging in hope over reality. I think Whitehall has been discovering day by day just how complicated the whole situation is. Do I have confidence that there will be a coherent plan? As I say, the jury is out on that and it is still not highly clear to me how the UK gets from where it is now to having a clear consistent plan by the end of March.”

Sturgeon confirms Scottish talks on free abortions for Northern Irish women

Scotland’s offer to give abortions to Northern Irish women shames Stormont | Patrick Corrigan

Scotland and Northern Ireland are separated by just a few short miles of sea. But when it comes to access to abortion, they are divided by more than 150 years of history. While Scots women are able to access abortions on the same basis as their counterparts in England and Wales, Northern Irish women still face a near-total ban on the termination of pregnancy.

In 2014-15, only 16 women were able to have lawful abortions in Northern Ireland. By contrast, 833 Ulster women travelled to England or Wales and paid for terminations at private clinics. And despite being full and equal taxpayers, Northern Ireland-resident women have been barred from accessing free abortions in NHS hospitals in England, Wales and Scotland.

It was into this breach that Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, stepped last week when she told the Scottish parliament that she would explore the possibility of women and girls from Northern Ireland being able to access terminations through NHS Scotland. Her intervention has enraged the deeply conservative Democratic Unionist party (DUP), Northern Ireland’s largest party of government, but been welcomed by pro-choice and human rights campaigners in the region.

While healthcare has been a devolved matter in Scotland since the creation of the Scottish parliament, it was only in May this year that abortion law was handed over to Holyrood. It is against this backdrop that Sturgeon’s intervention has demonstrated leadership on behalf of Northern Irish women sorely lacking both at Stormont and Westminster. There is near unanimous support in the Holyrood parliament for keeping abortion provision for Scotland in line with the 1967 Abortion Act. The picture couldn’t be more different across the water.

As recently as February this year, the Northern Ireland assembly voted to keep the region’s abortion law as it is, refusing to legislate for abortion even in cases of rape, incest, or where the foetus has no chance of survival outside the womb. This was despite a Belfast high court finding, just two months previously, that Northern Ireland law breaches the European convention on human rights.

Meanwhile, the UK health secretary Jeremy Hunt has determined that the NHS in England must operate a residence-based system so that women who live in Northern Ireland are barred from accessing NHS abortion services in England, despite being UK citizens. This position is currently the subject of a legal challenge at the UK supreme court taken by a Northern Ireland teenager and her mother. They want women and girls from Northern Ireland to receive free abortions on the NHS in England.

The young woman at the centre of the case was 15 in 2012 when she and her mother travelled from Northern Ireland to Manchester and were asked to pay for a private termination. It is estimated that, with private clinic charges as well as the cost of travel and accommodation, a Northern Ireland woman needs to find anything between £400 and £2,000 to obtain a lawful abortion across the water in Britain – NHS care available for free to women in every other part of the UK.

Northern Ireland’s politicians are being left behind by the people

Stephen Cragg, who is acting as QC for the mother and daughter, told the supreme court at a hearing earlier this month that women and girls like his client are “second-class citizens” who “live in the UK, but – unlike all other women and girls in the UK – they are at risk of the most serious criminal penalty if they procure an abortion in their own area”.

In Northern Ireland, any woman or girl who has an abortion deemed unlawful is liable for prosecution and could face a sentence of up to life imprisonment. Earlier this year a woman who had induced her own miscarriage by taking abortion pills obtained over the internet was found guilty under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act and given a three-month suspended sentence. There are a number of other similar cases poised to come before the courts in Northern Ireland, including the prosecution of a mother who obtained the pills on behalf of her pregnant teenage daughter.

Despite all this, a majority of Northern Ireland’s politicians have set their face against reform. Comfortable in their self-designation as “pro-life”, they appear to be immune to criticism – even from the UN, whose human rights committee recently ruled that this part of the UK’s laws prohibiting and criminalising abortion constitute a human rights violation.

But, increasingly, Northern Ireland’s politicians are being left behind by the people. Independent polling published recently by Amnesty International showed that seven in 10 people want to see Northern Ireland’s harsh abortion laws changed, while more than half want to see abortion decriminalised altogether. The tens of thousands of people who are calling for abortion to be decriminalised also speak to that shift.

Sturgeon’s offer of possible help to Northern Irish women and girls should be a matter of deep embarrassment to ministers in Northern Ireland. Theresa May should match Sturgeon’s offer to stand up for Northern Irish women abandoned by their own politicians. When it comes to the human right to healthcare, lines on a map should be no barrier.

Scotland’s offer to give abortions to Northern Irish women shames Stormont | Patrick Corrigan

Nicola Sturgeon offers help to Northern Irish women seeking abortions

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 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 International welcomed 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.”

Corrigan said Sturgeon’s offer of help should not, however, allow Northern Irish politicians to do nothing on the question of abortion. “While this would be a welcome and helpful step, it is no substitute for the Northern Ireland executive putting its own house in order with respect to significant reform of our scandalous abortion laws,” he said.

“The fact that Scotland’s first minister is now exploring what she can do to help women and girls from Northern Ireland is an indictment of the failure of Northern Ireland own’s first minister, executive colleagues and the assembly.”

Last November, a 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 1967 Abortion Act 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.

Nicola Sturgeon offers help to Northern Irish women seeking abortions

Irish women need your help to change our abortion laws | Una Mullally

Amid all the talk of separation between the UK and its EU neighbours there is an opportunity to build a solidarity movement, at least between people in Britain and Ireland. Draconian laws that force women from both parts of Ireland to travel to Britain to access abortion have never received so much public attention as recently, and growing awareness in Britain is giving Irish women new hope.

The stories are heartbreaking: couples bringing the remains of foetuses with fatal abnormalities home through British airports in freezer bags because they couldn’t have a termination in an Irish hospital; the depravity of forcing a raped asylum seeker on hunger strike to continue a pregnancy she didn’t want; the brain-dead woman kept alive because she was pregnant; the young Northern Irish woman given a suspended sentence because she took abortion pills to end a pregnancy and her housemates told the police. There is no abortion in Ireland for rape, for incest, for fatal foetal abnormalities. Let’s be clear though, thousands of Irish women have abortions every year – they just don’t have them in Ireland. An Irish problem washes up on Britain’s shores.

Many things led to the ban on abortion in Ireland. But those factors – Catholicism, misogyny, an obsession with controlling women’s bodies – sound more archaic with each passing year. Within Ireland, consistent polling shows there is now a desire for women not to be criminalised for abortions and for the constitutional ban on abortion to be repealed. The tangible obstacle is the eighth amendment to the constitution, which was inserted after a referendum in 1983. This clause states: “The state acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”

Before any abortion legislation can be enacted, this amendment (which effectively puts the life of the unborn on a par with the life of the mother) needs to be overturned by referendum. But Irish women are no longer waiting for change to come. We are demanding it, and asking our allies to help.

The movement to repeal the 8th is growing, especially since the equal marriage referendum last year inspired a generation of young Irish people. In the days after that referendum, the question that Irish people hear repeatedly from abroad was raised: how can Ireland have gay marriage and not abortion? It’s one that can only be answered by acknowledging that misogyny in Ireland runs even deeper than homophobia.

British people need to stomp on the streets and on the floors of parliament to help shame our government

What the equal marriage referendum taught us was that change comes from the bottom up. And we don’t just need one voice advocating for change, but many. The recent March for Choice in Dublin was replicated in cities around the world, with tens of thousands of people turning out to demand reproductive rights.

Sweeping things under the carpet is a national sport in Ireland, but at last, women’s personal stories are informing a movement in a way that was impossible in the past because of social taboos. We have a torrid history of oppressing women, thanks to the power the Catholic church once wielded in collusion with the state. Women are now telling their abortion stories in great numbers for the first time, and as we learned during the equal marriage referendum campaign, you can’t beat real-life experiences with abstract arguments.

Successive Irish governments haven’t listened to their female citizens. But what Irish governments really dislike is being embarrassed from abroad. As a nation, we are insecure, obsessed with our identity and what people think of us. So if politicians don’t have the guts to tackle this issue then they need to be shamed into action.

Solidarity matters because the extended hand often feels so much warmer than your own. The idea that people you don’t even know care about you is important. It bolsters you. And while solidarity from outside Ireland exists in pockets, we now need it from Britain en masse.

British people need to stomp on the streets and on the floors of parliament to help shame our government. British people should especially demand that women in Northern Ireland have the same reproductive rights as in England, Scotland, and Wales, and that those rights be extended to women on the Isle of Man too. A strip of sea separates us, but we are just like you. We watch EastEnders, shop in Topshop, cry at Bake Off and drink gin. Your football teams are our football teams. We don’t earn enough and are sick of the rain. We are not “other”.

Many women and groups in Britain are already helping. The Abortion Support Network, which was established in 2009, assists women financially and logistically to access abortion in Britain. In London, protesters have marched with wheelie suitcases, symbolising the dozen women who travel each day from Ireland to access abortion in Britain. Volunteers give Irish women who are travelling for abortions a bed to sleep in. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service clinics sometimes offer reduced fees for Irish women who can’t afford the price of an abortion.

But there is still no other medical procedure that has to be undergone in such a clandestine manner, and that is why we need Britain to do more. We are so intertwined; by language, by history, by culture, by geography. Our lives and lifestyles are to an outside eye so similar. So imagine if what we’re dealing with was your reality? It is as unfair and heartbreaking to us as it would be if it were you. We need your help.

Irish women need your help to change our abortion laws | Una Mullally

Sydney"s "Rose of Tralee" shakes up Irish pageant with abortion rights speech

For almost six decades the Rose of Tralee – a pageant “which brings young women of Irish descent from around the world to County Kerry, Ireland for a global celebration of Irish culture” – has managed to avoid anything more political than expressing a desire to help the less well off.

That cozy consensus changed this week, when the Sydney entrant to the competition, Brianna Parkins, told presenter Dáithí Ó Sé, live on television: “I think we can do better here in Ireland. I think it is time to give women a say on their own reproductive rights. I would love to see a referendum on the eighth coming up soon. That would be my dream.”

Parkins was referring to the eighth amendment to Ireland’s constitution, passed in 1983, which guarantees the “right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”

— Marian Keyes (@MarianKeyes) August 27, 2016

Oh lads! This is an AMAZING article from @parkinsbrea. I’m in awe of her courage

Sydney"s "Rose of Tralee" shakes up Irish pageant with abortion rights speech

Irish woman live-tweets journey for abortion in Great Britain

An Irish woman who is live-tweeting her trip to Great Britain to obtain an abortion has thanked prime minister Enda Kenny for forcing her to “hit the road”.

The woman and a friend left Ireland at about dawn on Saturday, documenting their journey via the handle @TwoWomenTravel from 5am BST.

They described their mission: “Two women, one procedure, 48 hours away from home.”

— Two Women Travel (@TwoWomenTravel) August 20, 2016

Good morning all .Thanks for all of th messages of solidarity and support.Thanks to@EndaKennyTD we’re about to hit the road.#twowomentravel

Ireland has strict laws banning abortion, with a foetus given rights equal to the woman carrying it under the eighth amendment of the constitution.

With procuring an abortion illegally carrying a prison sentence of up to 14 years, about 10 women a day are thought to travel from Ireland to Great Britain or another European country for the procedure.

With their flight scheduled to depart at 6.30am, the pair told the Guardian they would “start moving” at 4.30am.

“Pressure is on!” she added.

— Two Women Travel (@TwoWomenTravel) August 20, 2016

#twowomentravel boarding, it’s chilly. @EndaKennyTD pic.twitter.com/mffXYkpI71

She declined to be interviewed but confirmed both were “well over” 18.

Their journey comes two months after a landmark ruling by the UN’s human rights committee that the Irish government subjected a woman to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment for forbidding her an abortion in 2011.

Related: ‘My baby in a box’: Irish GP tells of trauma of travelling to UK for abortion

The ruling that Ireland had violated Amanda Mellet’s human rights by refusing her an abortion of a foetus with congenital defects that meant it would die in the womb or shortly after birth was expected to set an international precedent.

Pro-choice campaigners in Ireland have used Twitter to call for changes to the abortion law in the past, often hashtagging them #repealthe8th.

Irish women were encouraged to share their period stories with the taoiseach, Enda Kenny, on Twitter in November last year.

Grainne Maguire started the trend with the call: “Women of Ireland! Your vagina is their business!”

Kenny did not respond on Twitter, but has said he would not commit his Fine Gael party to a referendum on the issue, the only way to effect changes to the Irish constitution.

In April, a 21-year-old Northern Ireland woman who took abortion pills to terminate a pregnancy was sentenced to a three-month prison sentence, suspended over 12 months. Her flatmates had reported her to police.

Weeks later, three women handed themselves into a police station in Derry in protest against the laws, admitting that they had procured and taken the pills and requesting to be prosecuted.

Among them was Diana King, 72, a retired social worker, who said the treatment of women was “unforgivable”.

She said she would tell police she had procured the nine-week pills “on several occasions” but would argue she had not committed any offence.

“We know that going to jail is a possibility,” she said, “but we will be saying that we don’t think that we have done anything wrong.”

Irish woman live-tweets journey for abortion in Great Britain

Irish woman live-tweets journey for abortion in Great Britain

An Irish woman who is live-tweeting her trip to Great Britain to obtain an abortion has thanked prime minister Enda Kenny for forcing her to “hit the road”.

The woman and a friend left Ireland at about dawn on Saturday, documenting their journey via the handle @TwoWomenTravel from 5am BST.

They described their mission: “Two women, one procedure, 48 hours away from home.”

— Two Women Travel (@TwoWomenTravel) August 20, 2016

Good morning all .Thanks for all of th messages of solidarity and support.Thanks to@EndaKennyTD we’re about to hit the road.#twowomentravel

Ireland has strict laws banning abortion, with a foetus given rights equal to the woman carrying it under the eighth amendment of the constitution.

With procuring an abortion illegally carrying a prison sentence of up to 14 years, about 10 women a day are thought to travel from Ireland to Great Britain or another European country for the procedure.

With their flight scheduled to depart at 6.30am, the pair told the Guardian they would “start moving” at 4.30am.

“Pressure is on!” she added.

She declined to be interviewed but confirmed both were “well over” 18.

Their journey comes two months after a landmark ruling by the UN’s human rights committee that the Irish government subjected a woman to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment for forbidding her an abortion in 2011.

Related: ‘My baby in a box’: Irish GP tells of trauma of travelling to UK for abortion

The ruling that Ireland had violated Amanda Mellet’s human rights by refusing her an abortion of a foetus with congenital defects that meant it would die in the womb or shortly after birth was expected to set an international precedent.

Pro-choice campaigners in Ireland have used Twitter to call for changes to the abortion law in the past, often hashtagging them #repealthe8th.

Irish women were encouraged to share their period stories with the taoiseach, Enda Kenny, on Twitter in November last year.

Grainne Maguire started the trend with the call: “Women of Ireland! Your vagina is their business!”

Kenny did not respond on Twitter, but has said he would not commit his Fine Gael party to a referendum on the issue, the only way to effect changes to the Irish constitution.

In April, a 21-year-old Northern Ireland woman who took abortion pills to terminate a pregnancy was sentenced to a three-month prison sentence, suspended over 12 months. Her flatmates had reported her to police.

Weeks later, three women handed themselves into a police station in Derry in protest against the laws, admitting that they had procured and taken the pills and requesting to be prosecuted.

Among them was Diana King, 72, a retired social worker, who said the treatment of women was “unforgivable”.

She said she would tell police she had procured the nine-week pills “on several occasions” but would argue she had not committed any offence.

“We know that going to jail is a possibility,” she said, “but we will be saying that we don’t think that we have done anything wrong.”

Irish woman live-tweets journey for abortion in Great Britain

"My baby in a box": Irish GP tells of trauma of travelling to UK for abortion

A Dublin doctor has spoken of the trauma of returning the foetal remains of her baby from England after Ireland’s near total ban on abortions forced her to travel to Liverpool to terminate her pregnancy.

Dr Lara Kelly is one of the first members of the Irish medical profession to speak publicly about travelling to the UK for an abortion. The 35-year-old GP said her decision to speak out was motivated by the blocking of a bill in the Irish parliament earlier this month that would have allowed for abortions in Irish hospitals in cases of fatal foetal abnormalities.

Kelly and her husband, Mark, learned in March that their baby’s brain had not developed properly, that it only had half of a heart, and that it would die shortly after birth.

After receiving confirmation from their consultant around Easter, they travelled to a Liverpool clinic, where the termination took place a fortnight before their first wedding anniversary.

Kelly wanted to take the foetal remains home to be cremated, a process she described as traumatic and unfair.

Pro-choice activists protest against a pro-life march on Dublin’s O’Connell Street. Photograph: Alamy

“The Tottenham Hotspur football team were staying at our hotel [in Liverpool],” Kelly said. “I remember carrying the remains past the entire Spurs squad. It was the weirdest thing, walking past them and some of their fans in the packed lobby.

“There was me with my little plastic bag and the baby’s remains in a cardboard box. It was just so bizarre passing by the players with the remains of our baby under my arm.”

At Liverpool airport, Kelly and her husband decided to carry the remains on to the plane, rather than have them placed in the hold, in case the luggage went missing. Passing through security brought on further trauma, she said.

“We were queuing at security for ages and I wasn’t feeling physically great after the procedure the day before,” she said. “When we got to the top we said to the security guy that we had to declare foetal remains. The guy said, ‘What?’ He didn’t seem to understand and so we said it out loud again. He didn’t know what foetal remains meant so Mark said, ‘It’s a baby in the box’, and the man said out loud, ‘A baby in the box?’ Half the queue heard that, probably some of those who were getting on our flight to Dublin heard that.”

Related: UN calls on Ireland to reform abortion laws after landmark ruling

The whole experience was an ordeal, she said. “People – from the hotel clerk to the taxi man taking us to the clinic – kept asking us what we were doing over in Liverpool. Having to avoid those questions was the start of it all feeling so unfair.

“I didn’t even let the taxi drop us right outside the clinic and instead got out before the entrance further down the road. It was all about keeping it secret and to ourselves. I wasn’t questioning what I was going to do, I just didn’t want people to know. We had to lie to people about why we were really over in Liverpool, a series of lies and I couldn’t stop. You lied because you were supposed to lie.”

Kelly and her husband said they had not taken the decision to have an abortion lightly. “We discussed the termination and we felt it was absolutely the best decision for us,” she said. “This was very much a wanted baby. It was an enormous decision that we took very seriously.”

Protesters demand the abolition of the eighth amendment in Dublin in 2014. Photograph: NurPhoto/Rex Shutterstock

According to statistics compiled by the UK’s Department of Health between 1980 and 2015, at least 165,438 Irish women and girls accessed UK abortion services. Last year, the figure was 3,451.

However, the Irish Family Planning Association pointed out that these figures underestimate the real numbers, as not all women will provide Irish addresses for reasons of confidentiality. Thousands of other Irish women access abortion through pills bought online, the IFPA adds.

Two incidents from Kelly’s experience bore out the high numbers. When Kelly found the website for the clinic in Liverpool that dealt with fatal foetal causes, she noticed there was a specific section called Travelling from Ireland.

“Bizarrely, the terminations are cheaper for women coming from Ireland because they are mindful about the costs of going over to England,” Kelly said. “It shows how many Irish women use their services.”

On her way back to Dublin, Kelly approached a member of staff at Liverpool airport to ask for advice about travelling with foetal remains. “The girl was Irish as it happened and she said something astonishing to me. ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘You need to go over to the gentleman at customs and declare the remains at security. It’s fine, I did it a few weeks ago.’ That’s what she said to me. It was said with such normality because she had done it herself.”

After landing in Dublin the couple drove straight to a funeral home. Once home, Kelly was upfront about her termination within her wider family, who she said supported her decision fully.

However, she said she would have preferred to have had the termination in her home city, adding: “I could have gone to my local hospital that morning, I could have been with my mum and dad recovering that night after it; in my own bed under supervision of my own doctor. I was made to get on a plane to go to a different country because I was not allowed to be here.”

Related: ‘I’ve seen horrible things’: photographer Laia Abril on her history of misogyny

Kelly supports demands by pro-choice campaigners for a referendum aimed at abolishing the eighth amendment to the Irish constitution. It was passed in a previous plebiscite in 1983, under pressure from powerful anti-abortion groups, and effectively makes the embryo an Irish citizen with full constitutional rights from the moment of conception.

Pro-choice reformers believe that there can be no liberalisation of Ireland’s strict anti-abortion laws until the amendment is abolished, as it generates a climate of fear among Irish medical teams even considering terminations allowed under current legislation. Abortions are only legal in Irish hospitals if there is a direct threat to a mother’s life or the woman is suicidal.

Kelly said her experience underlined the need to abolish the amendment. “I would like the people of this country to have the right to vote on this. Give us our referendum. None of the people of my generation got to speak in 1983. I was 18 months old the last time this was voted on,” she said.

“As for politicians, I would say to them that I have a story and they should speak to the women who have gone through it instead of just exporting the problem.”

"My baby in a box": Irish GP tells of trauma of travelling to UK for abortion

Medtronic To Get Covidien, Go Irish, Says It is Not About Offshore Taxes

Medtronic has agreed to get Covidien for $ 42.9 billion in income and stock. Medtronic is the world’s biggest stand-alone health care gadget maker, selling pacemakers, defibrillators, stents, and so forth., whilst Covidien tends to make products utilized in surgical procedures, this kind of as surgical staples, feeding pumps, ventilators, and so on. The marriage will rival the greatest in the healthcare gadget market, Johnson &amp Johnson.

Oh, Medtronic will get Ireland in the deal, which not coincidentally ought to slash its taxes. The celebration line is that the deal is about synergy with Covidien, not taxes. Medtronic is going out of its way to downplay the inversion deal, some thing that seems intelligent following Pfizer’s failed try to merge with AstraZeneca.

Medtronic stated operational headquarters would continue to be in Minneapolis. It even pledged $ 10 billion in U.S. technological innovation investments more than 10 many years. Still, it is clear executive offices will be in Ireland, conserving taxes.

Ireland (Photo credit: NASA Goddard Photograph and Video)

Medtronic Chief Executive Omar Ishrak mentioned Medtronic’s corporate tax charge will stay about 18 %. Yet Medtronic is holding more than $ 14 billion in income, most of it outside the U.S. because it doesn’t pay out taxes right up until it brings earnings back. That and other information make the tax factors of this deal enormous.

With diverse lines, the deal would seem unlikely to encounter antitrust problems. Though there will be synergies, it is difficult not to consider about taxes, and some drop for Medtronic looks inevitable. The bargains are known as “inversions” when a U.S. organization moves its domicile so that it is no longer subject to U.S. corporate taxes.

Two current inversion attempts failed. One particular was Pfizer’s bid for Britain’s AstraZeneca, and the other was Omnicom Group’s grab for France’s Publicis Groupe. Inversions don’t minimize taxes on pure U.S. earnings, but can shield revenue all around the globe from the substantial 35% U.S. corporate tax charge.

U.S. tax law started cracking down on inversions a decade ago. 1 can not just move business headquarters. And if you try, you might get stuck paying a whole lot of further taxes, penalties and curiosity.

However, a foreign spouse can be fairly alluring. First find a foreign firm to buy. Arrange it so the foreign firm acquires the American a single, or a holding organization is formed to merge the two suitors. Make sure far more than twenty% of the post marriage combination is owned by foreigners.

Result? No longer an American firm stuck in the U.S. tax code, the sophisticated global enterprise can end being domiciled in the U.S. That signifies U.S. taxes go down materially.

Congress has attempted to avert these ahead of. Section 7874 of the tax code currently covers these deals, but is complex and has failed to perform. Now, Congress is striving to make inversions considerably more restrictive.

Below current proposals, the twenty% rule for these inversions would leap to a whopping 50%. That would make sure a foreign company would have to genuinely and truly be the controlling purchaser. President Obama has advised one thing comparable.

Why have more than forty organizations lately gone foreign? U.S. corporate tax prices are high at 35%. Ireland’s tax price is twelve.5%. And several companies get benefit of it.

Apple may be the most prominent illustration, not of an inversion but of Irish operations. In accordance to a recent Senate report, Apple, avoided paying $ 9 billion in U.S. taxes in a single yr.

You can attain me at Wood@WoodLLP.com. This discussion is not meant as legal advice, and can’t be relied on for any goal without having the services of a qualified specialist.

Medtronic To Get Covidien, Go Irish, Says It is Not About Offshore Taxes

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EU workout poll: Brits and Irish volunteer most as coaches

A Europe-wide study uncovered that Swedish men and women pick to do the most workout, with just 9 per cent claiming they in no way get element, even though at the other finish of the scale, 78 per cent of Bulgarians admitted to never exercising at all.

Nonetheless, the report for the European Commission located 39 per cent of men and women in Britain volunteer to coach other folks, second only to Ireland, where 44 per cent stated they gave up their spare time to be a trainer.

The research for the “Eurobarometer survey”, which was published this month, was carried out in November and December final year across the 28 member states of the European Union.

Some 27,919 respondents from diverse social and demographic groups were interviewed face-to-face at residence.

The report located 41 per cent of Europeans workout or play sport at least after a week, although 59 per cent in no way or seldom do so. Although the figures have not changed considerably considering that 2009, the proportion of folks who explained they never exercise or play sport at all enhanced from 39 per cent 5 years ago to 42 per cent now.

The examine identified guys in the EU physical exercise, perform sport or engage in other bodily action far more than girls, with the disparity particularly marked in the 15 to 24 age group, with younger males (74 per cent) tending to exercise or perform sport on a typical basis significantly a lot more than young women (fifty five per cent).

EU workout poll: Brits and Irish volunteer most as coaches