100,000 lives saved by Northern Ireland's abortion laws, report claims

A new report has estimated that more than 100,000 lives have been saved because Northern Ireland did not implement the 1967 Abortion Act, which legalized the procedure in the rest of the U.K.

The report was published by the pro-life campaign group Both Lives Matter, which aims to reframe the abortion debate in Northern Ireland.

The figure was found using the abortion rates in Scotland, which has the lowest abortion rates in the U.K and most culturally similar to Northern Ireland, Premier reported. The study then estimates the number of abortions performed for Northern Irish women in England and Wales, based on data from the U.K. Department of Health. The number of lives saved from abortion is arrived at by calculating the difference between the two figures.

"There is obviously no absolute certainty about what 'an alternative Northern Ireland' would have looked like if the 1967 abortion legislation had been applied here as in GB," said economist Dr. Esmond Birnie.

"However, what Both Lives Matter have done, as the basis for their report, is to make plausible and cautious estimates as to what might have happened. The estimates suggest that 100,000 people - men, women and children - are alive in Northern Ireland today," he added.

Dawn McAvoy of Both Lives Matter argued that the debate over abortion is not just about the concern for the unborn child or the rights of the woman.

"The reality is that both lives matter," said McAvoy. "The contrast with England and Wales is stark. There one in three women by the age of 45 will have had an abortion and for every four children born alive, one has been aborted," she added.

The report came just after David Ford, the former leader of the cross-community Alliance Party, vowed to continue his efforts to push for a law allowing abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality.

The Offences Against the Persons Act 1861, which is the current law pertaining to abortion, carries a life sentence for anyone who is convicted of terminating a pregnancy. It does not provide exceptions for cases of rape, incest or fatal fetal abnormalities. In 1945, Northern Ireland implemented the Infant Life (Preservation) Act, which permits abortions to preserve the life of the mother.

In 2015, a high court judge in Belfast ruled that Northern Ireland's law against abortion was incompatible with the rights of women. However, the law can only be changed by legislators. Northern Ireland's attorney general John Larkin is challenging the ruling.