“Abortion for most people was seen as a ‘dirty secret’. Through the years of campaigning, it became what most people would call a ‘necessary evil’. What the debate in Northern Ireland has done […] is to transform abortion from something that was a sensitive, controversial issue into something that is a principle”
Stella Creasy MP
In this lesson, we will look in detail at the process of the CEDAW investigation and report.
This lesson should take you about 15 minutes to complete.
Watch the following video, where Catherine O’Rourke talks to Naomi Connor. Catherine is a human-rights lawyer, and was instrumental in bringing the issue of abortion in NI to the attention of the UN CEDAW. Catherine and Naomi talk about the process of preparing the CEDAW application and the impact that the CEDAW inspection had on the human-rights community in Northern Ireland.
As you watch, think about the following question:
In answering this question, it’s helpful to consider the situation in NI at the time that lawyers and activists started their case to CEDAW. NI was governed by a devolved government and legislature who were, on the whole, opposed to abortion reform. Meanwhile the Westminster government maintained that abortion was a ‘devolved’ issue. As a result women in NI were being treated unfairly. Abortion was considered ‘too political’ or ‘too sensitive’ for either mainstream political parties or human rights organisations to get behind. It was not considered to be an issue of rights. As By ‘re-framing’ abortion as a human rights issue in the way they did, activists and lawyers brought powerful global pressure to bear on the UK government. They also put abortion at the centre of human rights and political discourses in NI. It was this change that was instrumental in bringing about decriminalisation.
Preparing the CEDAW application meant that activists and lawyers had to work together to create a compelling case as to why abortion was linked to a range of other rights and how not providing abortion impacted on rights. The examples Catherine uses in the video are: the rights of rural and socio-economically disadvantage women, health,rights and the right to education etc. The CEDAW inspection also engaged with organisations and individuals in ways that enabled them to articulate their own experiences of abortion as rights issues.