New Report from ICNI on ‘Beyond Decriminalisation: Pregnancy Choices and Abortion Care in Northern Ireland’ Published

22 June 2021

A new report produced by Informing Choices NI (ICNI) entitled ‘Beyond Decriminalisation: Pregnancy Choices and Abortion Care in Northern Ireland’ is published today.

The report focuses on aspects of the Central Access Point (CAP) and early medical abortion (EMA) service including their design and implementation; the provision of counselling support; the provision of the service from a healthcare professionals’ perspective; accessing the service from a woman’s perspective; the impact of protestors; the availability of contraception; the lack of a public health information campaign; and recommendations for future commissioning.

Significantly, the report states that if funding is not made available for ICNI to continue providing the Central Access Point, the service will cease from 1 October 2021. This very difficult decision was reluctantly taken by the ICNI Board of Trustees earlier this week. It is not a decision that the Board has taken lightly, but unfortunately the service is simply not sustainable in the current format, and by October ICNI will have been providing it outside of a commissioned framework for 18 months.

Ruairi Rowan, Director of Advocacy and Policy at Informing Choices NI, states that: “ICNI remain hopeful that a resolution can be found. Putting a firm date on which the service will end will hopefully focus political minds and lead to the additional support ICNI and all of the healthcare professionals in NI need and deserve”.

The British Society of Abortion Care Providers (BSACP) was invited to contribute a short summary of the Society’s views of the EMA service established in NI during the pandemic for inclusion in this report on the first year of the CAP provided by ICNI. BSACP’s comments are included in the report as a testimonial, which appears on the inside front cover (p. 2).

ICNI Beyond Decriminalisation Report FINAL 22.06.2021

 

About ICNI

Informing Choices NI (ICNI) is a sexual and reproductive health charity based in Belfast. The charity champions informed choices around sex, sexuality and reproductive health and emotional wellbeing through advocacy, counselling, education, information and training. ICNI’s vision is a society where individuals have the right and freedom to make informed choices about their sexual and reproductive health.

Contact: T: 028 9031 6100. W: www.informingchoicesni.org