Join the FPA campaign to secure the right to choose in Northern Ireland

Did you know that, as the law stands, no woman in Northern Ireland has the automatic right to abortion? This includes women who've been raped, victims of incest and women whose baby has been diagnosed as profoundly disabled or will not live at birth. Women in England, Scotland and Wales are entitled to a legal, safe abortion on the NHS and have been for the last 40 years. Women in Northern Ireland do not have this right.

So what happens?

Any woman in Northern Ireland can ask for an abortion. Most women are refused and told they can’t have one. So if a woman wants an abortion she (or her family) has to:

• borrow or find £2,000 from somewhere to pay for one 
• find an abortion clinic in Britain or elsewhere in Europe
• contact the clinic 
• make all the appointments herself 
• find somewhere to stay when she’s having the abortion
• sort out all the travel arrangements
• arrange any childcare she may need (sometimes without telling people why she needs it)
• spend two days away from home (often by herself) to have the abortion
• come home, often not telling anyone why she’s been away or why she needed the money.

And she pays for all this herself. Even though she is a UK citizen and a UK taxpayer!

Last year alone, women in Northern Ireland collectively spent over £1 million to come to England and have an abortion.

The FPA unplanned pregnancy counselling service does everything it can to help these women. But the women of Northern Ireland need your help too.

Sign our petition

Sign the FPA petition to the Prime Minister demanding that women in Northern Ireland who’ve been refused an abortion are given funding to travel to Britain and have the abortion here.

We would never tell a British woman who’s been sexually abused, has a serious health problem or is desperately struggling to make ends meet that if she wants an abortion she has to pay for it herself and travel to another country to have it. But that’s what the women of Northern Ireland are told every day!

Watch Discrimination and denial, a film on abortion law in Northern Ireland.

Celebrities give their support to women of Northern Ireland

Join thousands of us, including the Guardian's Polly Toynbee, Time Team's Tony Robinson and the celebrity presenters Janet Ellis and Beverley Turner, in our campaign for equal rights to abortion for the women of Northern Ireland.

Find out more about campaigner and comedian Mark Thomas' 'People's Manifesto' to get abortion services for Northern Ireland.

Real life, real stories:

Find out more.

• Watch the real life video stories of women denied abortion in Northern Ireland.
• Read what women denied an abortion go through.
• Find out about FPA in Belfast and Derry; the only unbiased unplanned pregnancy counselling service in Northern Ireland.

How you can help

• Become a friend on our facebook page.
• Parliamentary Motion on abortion: 62 MPs signed. Find out if yours did.
• Sign our new petition.

About our campaign

Find out:

• The anti abortion group's challenge to abortion guidelines in Northern Ireland.
• Why we need an abortion campaign in Northern Ireland.
• Questions and answers on abortion in Northern Ireland: why don't women in Northern Ireland have the same rights to abortion?

How have we been campaigning so far?

In May 2001, FPA initiated proceedings against the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS) in Northern Ireland. We applied for a Judicial Review into the medical practices relating to abortion and the provision of abortion services in Northern Ireland.

The Review was heard in March 2002 by Mr Justice Brian Kerr. Justice Kerr suggested that although the Department should not be compelled to issue guidelines, it would be prudent to do so.

In May 2004 FPA in Northern Ireland appealed against the result of Northern Ireland's Judicial Review of abortion services.

In January 2007, the DHSSPS issued draft guidelines on abortion to health professionals. Read FPA press release about the guidelines.

In April 2007, FPA wrote a response to the consultation on the draft guidelines which was submitted to the DHSSPS.

In July 2008, FPA launched Time for Change, a campaign for women's rights to abortion in Northern Ireland.

We launched Time for Change with a massive postcard drop to MPs and the Prime Minister campaigning to extend abortion to Northern Ireland by amending the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Bill. Since then we've secured amazing public support and our campaign goes on stronger than ever.

Find out about:

• The Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Bill abortion campaign in Parliament
• How did the HFE Bill relate to abortion?
• Guidance on abortion from Northern Ireland (FPA press release)
• Giving women in Northern Ireland the right to choose (FPA press release)
• UN concluding that abortion should be available in Northern Ireland (FPA press release).

The first FPA petition

In September 2008 we launched our first petition to the Prime Minister to give women in Northern Ireland the same right to abortion as women in Great Britain.

Thanks to the 3,302 people who signed it.

The petition closed in September 2009. In October the Government said: "The Government's position remains that any proposals to change abortion legislation in Northern Ireland are matters best dealt with by the Assembly once it assumes the responsibility for the criminal law.

The UK Government has abandoned the women of Northern Ireland, FPA hasn’t!