{"id":2026,"date":"2017-10-16T16:33:14","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T16:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/factcheckni.org\/?p=2026"},"modified":"2022-03-23T14:01:50","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T14:01:50","slug":"full-fact-how-many-women-leave-northern-ireland-to-have-an-abortion-in-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/factcheckni.org\/topics\/health\/full-fact-how-many-women-leave-northern-ireland-to-have-an-abortion-in-britain\/","title":{"rendered":"Full Fact: How many women leave Northern Ireland to have an abortion in Britain?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This claim is not accurate. 3,265 women living in Ireland came to England and Wales for an abortion in 2016. 43 refers to the reported number of women from one hospital who came to the UK so far in 2017.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The following article was originally published by Full Fact<\/a>, as part of a roundup<\/a>of BBC Question Time. It is republished here by FactCheckNI, with permission, of potential interest to our readers.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have circumstances here where perhaps thousands of women are leaving the island of Ireland in its entirety because our law across the island of Ireland is very similar, to go to Britain for abortions.\u201d
John O\u2019Dowd MLA,\u00a012 October 2017<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJohn O\u2019Dowd said that thousands of women are going to England for an abortion. Because of the proposed referendum in the South, they published figures today and said last year, 43 women went to England for an abortion. So these figures are greatly exaggerated.\u201d
BBC Question Time audience member,\u00a012 October 2017<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were just under 4,000 women<\/a> from Ireland (3,265) and Northern Ireland (724) who had an abortion in England or Wales in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

724 women living in Northern Ireland had an abortion in England or Wales in 2016, along with another 3,265 from the Republic of Ireland. These made up 83% of all abortions to women who weren\u2019t living in England or Wales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Scotland there were seven abortions performed on women<\/a> who weren\u2019t resident in the country in 2016\u2014although there is no more information on where they were from. But the Scottish government says<\/a> that women from outside Scotland might be counted as Scottish residents if they provide a temporary Scottish address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Altogether over 190,000 abortions took place in England and Wales last year and 12,000 in Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The audience member may have been referring to the situation in one of Dublin\u2019s maternity hospitals, according to evidence given to a committee of Irish politicians<\/a> by Dr Rhona Mahony. She told the committee<\/a> that \u201c60 women attending our service travelled to the UK for termination of pregnancy in the context of foetal anomaly in 2016, and to date this year at Holles Street [the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin], 43 women have travelled in this context.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland unless<\/a> it is done only to preserve the life of the mother. In Ireland a referendum on the eighth amendment to the Constitution<\/a> (giving a mother and unborn child an equal right to life) is scheduled<\/a> for 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by Claire MILNE for Full Fact and originally published: https:\/\/fullfact.org\/health\/how-many-women-leave-northern-ireland-have-abortion-britain\/<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

FactCheckNI is Northern Ireland\u2019s first and only dedicated independent fact-checking service and a verified signatory<\/a> to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles<\/a>. You can learn more about about FactCheckNI<\/a>, our personnel<\/a>, what our article verdicts<\/a> mean, and how to submit a claim<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This claim is not accurate. 3,265 women living in Ireland came to England and Wales for an abortion in 2016. 43 refers to the reported number of women from one hospital who came to the UK so far in 2017. The following article was originally published by Full Fact, as part of a roundupof BBC Question Time. It…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[78],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFull Fact: How many women leave Northern Ireland to have an abortion in Britain? - FactCheckNI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/factcheckni.org\/topics\/health\/full-fact-how-many-women-leave-northern-ireland-to-have-an-abortion-in-britain\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Full Fact: How many women leave Northern Ireland to have an abortion in Britain? - FactCheckNI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This claim is not accurate. 3,265 women living in Ireland came to England and Wales for an abortion in 2016. 43 refers to the reported number of women from one hospital who came to the UK so far in 2017. 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