London - A woman in Northern Ireland won a landmark challenge
to the territory's strict abortion law on Thursday, in a case hailed
by human rights activists as a "huge victory".
Northern Ireland's High Court ruled that the current law breached the
human rights of Sarah Ewart, 29, who travelled to England for an
abortion in 2013.
Ewart was refused an abortion in Northern Ireland despite doctors
advising her that they expected her child to die in the womb or
shortly after birth.
"In my view her personal testimony is compelling," Judge Siobhan
Keegan said.
Keegan ruled that Northern Ireland's abortion law is incompatible
with provisions on fatal foetal abnormality in the European
Convention on Human Rights.
Darragh Mackin, a lawyer for Ewart, tweeted that the ruling was "a
huge victory" for her and women's rights campaigner Grainne Teggart.
Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International's Northern Ireland director,
said he was "delighted with this judgment."
"[It] supports what @AmnestyUK has said from the start - NI's
draconian abortion laws are a breach of human rights," Corrigan
tweeted.
Calls have grown for Northern Ireland's devolved government to loosen
the territory's abortion law after a successful campaign to change
Ireland's similarly restrictive law via a referendum last year.
Changes to the abortion law could be enacted this month if Northern
Ireland's main political parties fail to resume power sharing.
British lawmakers voted in July for wider abortion rights and
same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland, if the territory cannot
reconvene its devolved assembly by October 21.