SDLP Youth Statement on the Severe Fetal Impairment Abortion (Amendment) Bill

We wish to express our opposition to the Severe Fetal Impairment Abortion (Amendment) Bill which is being scrutinised in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Our policy is very clear: abortion is healthcare, it should be accessible to those who require it and users of these services deserve the utmost respect while seeking it. It is an obligation for the Assembly to comply with its legal obligations to uphold the provisions of UN CEDAW including the recommendations of the UN CEDAW Committee within its 2018 investigatory report and implement full abortion services urgently. As youth activists, we aim to develop progressive policies for both our organisation and to bring to our central Party. We will continue to work with activists to do this.

We are the youth wing of the party of civil rights. We must become a party of reproductive rights, women’s rights and trans rights.

We are a party which has steadfastly sought to advance policies to safeguard health and life during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As abortion services have not yet been fully commissioned, if the Severe Fetal Impairment Abortion (Amendment) Bill passes in the Assembly, we will actively put pregnant people at risk as they continue to have to travel during a pandemic for healthcare they should be able to access at home. We actively campaign against growing waiting lists in healthcare services; it is clear that addressing the denial of full access to reproductive healthcare cannot wait any longer. 

We recognise and respect the steadfast commitment to the progression of rights of the grassroots movements who have long sought to change our laws and policies, and we thank these activists for their engagement with us. We recognise their frustration with the progression of the Severe Fetal Impairment Abortion (Amendment) Bill and share their concerns with the ramifications the implementation of this Bill would have in restricting the accessibility of abortion and the infringement of ECHR rights. We therefore reaffirm our opposition to the Bill, and to any mechanism which would seek to curtail the current legal framework governing abortion in the North. We reaffirm our call for the full commissioning of services in the North, in line with the recommendations of the UN CEDAW Committee and in accordance with the law.