The Northern Irish abortion law has been repeatedly condemned by numerous organizations, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Amnesty International which regards abortion as a “fundamental human right,” key to upholding the rights of all people to their own bodily integrity.

“It is repulsive that in 2016 in part of the UK, and in part of the developed world, a woman has been prosecuted for taking drugs that are on the World Health Organisation’s essential medicines list,” says Mara Clarke, Director of the Abortion Support Network, a charity that helps women in Northern Ireland travel to…

Abortion Support Network founder on Manx Radio’s Women Today – from 18:35.

Abortion can already be punishment enough for women. I don’t think it has to be. There’s nothing wrong with it being a casual medical procedure. But a lot of people do find it difficult and your comments aren’t helping

Mara Clarke, director of the Abortion Support Network, has been invited by the Freethinkers and Positive Action Group to give a presentation at the Manx Legion Club in Market Hill.

“We’ve heard of more than one woman pregnant as a result of rape told by these agencies that ‘if you have the abortion you’re worse than the man that raped you and your actions will make you a murderer’. It’s insane.”

Mara Clarke, director of ASN, says the organization hears stories from Irish women who were initially unaware of the group’s existence and who had tried to terminate their pregnancies. “We are told, ‘I’ve been Googling ways to self-abort,’” Clarke says. “We had a woman who went out and bought heroin; she’s not a drug user,…

Mara Clarke, from the Abortion Support Network, said that even if the amendments proposed are passed at a future date, they don’t go far enough. “This is a very small percentage of the people who need abortions, which means women are still going to be faced with the fact that those who have £400 to…

I can’t tell you just how ashamed that makes me to live in Northern Ireland. I’m not going to get into the specifics of why free, safe and legal abortion is a basic requirement of any modernised and democratic nation. Women are already telling you in their thousands on this island why it is needed.

“Fewer than 1.4% of the abortions in England, Scotland and Wales happen at over 20 weeks. With our clients, it’s 8%, because they spend so long trying to raise the money.”