Northern Ireland's first private abortion clinic to open in Belfast

Marie Stopes predicts woman from Republic will use service as anti-abortion groups plan campaign to close centre

The Guardian, Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent, Thursday 11 October 2012

Anti-abortion campaigners protest outside a Marie Stopes clinic in London.
 The new clinic in Belfast opens next Thursday. Photograph: Olivia Harris/Reuters

Marie Stopes, the sexual health charity, predicts women will travel to Belfast from the Republic to have terminations when it opens the first private clinic to offer abortions on the island of Ireland.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where the Abortion Act 1967 does not apply, owing to opposition from the churches and almost all the parties at the Stormont assembly. Like their counterparts in the Republic, where abortions are illegal, Northern Irish women travel to other parts of Britain for terminations.

The centre's programme director, Dawn Purvis, said: "We believe this is great news for the people of Northern Ireland because we will be able to meet their family planning and sexual health needs in a way that has not been seen here before. We have a new, purpose-built, centrally located specialist centre. Our team are highly trained and dedicated healthcare professionals. And our services will be delivered in a confidential, sensitive and non-judgmental way."

Purvis is a former leader of the Progressive Unionist party.

Terminations will only be offered to women in the first nine weeks of pregnancy and will cost £450. The clinic, which opens next Thursday, also offers sexual and reproductive services including short- and long-term contraceptive options, emergency contraception and HIV testing.

Choice Ireland, a pro-choice organisation based in the Republic, has welcomed the new service. A spokeswoman, Sinéad Ahern, said the clinic would reduce the "psychological and financial burden" for women south of the border who are seeking a termination.

Dr Paula Franklin, medical director with Marie Stopes, said the terminations, which involve taking tablets, would only be carried out on women who meet criteria set by two doctors.

"In cases where we feel the woman's case meets medical requirements, we will carry out medical abortions. That's where two doctors independently review the woman's history and current physical and mental health," she said.

But anti-abortion campaigners in Northern Ireland say they will campaign to close down the clinic offering abortion services. Bernie Smith from the organisation Precious Life said: "I am absolutely outraged. An organisation which is making profits from the death of unborn children is not welcome in Northern Ireland. There will be an outcry from the people, from government and from the churches."

A group of Irish nationals who had abortions in England because their babies would not survive outside the womb have welcomed the opening of the clinic in Belfast.

But Ruth Bowie, of the Terminations for Medical Reasons campaign group, said a number of women both sides of the border would still be forced to cross the Irish Sea to have a termination. Fatal foetal abnormalities are only picked up within 12 to 20 weeks of pregnancy – long after the nine-week limit at the Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast.

"This development in Belfast will be of no help to the women north and south who are facing the trauma and upset of fatal foetal abnormalities," Bowie said. "Women and men in this situation continue to be forced to travel away from family, friends and their homes at the worst time of their lives.

"We continue to campaign for a change in this outdated law and will not stop until women and men who make this heartbreaking decision are afforded to the dignity to be cared for in their own country."

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"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism, Higgs Boson), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text Version)

"... I want to define life for you - not biological life, but spiritual life. So for all those intellectuals, just hold on, for many won't like this. Spiritual life, as measured by Spirit, is when a Human has free choice. When is that? It's when they take their first breath. Not in utero. There will be those who will say, "That's wrong, that's wrong. The soul in the woman's body is alive!" Just wait. I'm talking about spiritually. That which Spirit sees, and it's when you come from the other side of the veil and take your first breath.

A child with the mother has no free choice. That child is linked to the choice of the mother until it is born. It is, indeed, a soul in preparation for free choice, and there are many attributes that are spiritual that we have discussed before about how that soul reacts. But now I'm discussing life with polarity [duality], free choice.

But let's discuss that "child inside" for a moment, for there is a process I want you to know about. I want to talk about 240 days into the pregnancy. At about that time, the child has perfect DNA. It hasn't taken its first breath. The DNA hasn't measured the energy of the planet yet, since it is contained. Did you realize that? Inside the womb is a perfect child. The child's DNA has all the attributes of the Akash and also the parent, but it's different in a way you have not been told. The DNA is 100% as designed.

The quantum instructions within the DNA are all talking to the biology of the child,, getting ready for the first breath. ..."