Advocacy group says confusion over travel rights causing upset at distressing time
Women travelling abroad for abortion services are facing increased costs and delays, and are being refused permission to board flights amid confusion over their travel rights during the pandemic, an advocacy group has said.
The Abortion Support Network (ASN), a London-based charity supporting women travelling for abortion services, is calling for “clarity” from the Department of Health as to whether abortion is an “urgent” medical service under the Covid-19 travel regulations.
It said that if abortion is considered an urgent service, clarity is needed as to whether women returning to Ireland need to provide a negative PCR test.
The current regulations state that among those exempt from the requirement to provide a pre-departure, negative PCR test before arriving from the UK are: “Patients travelling to Ireland for urgent medical reasons [where] that reason is certified by registered medical practitioner or person holding an equivalent qualification outside the State.”
A negative test is not needed to travel from Ireland into the UK.
In recent weeks the ASN has supported women refused permission to board flights to Ireland after having abortions and, in one case, a woman who was refused permission to board a flight to the UK because she did not have evidence of recent negative tests.
Although medical abortion on request is legal up to 12 weeks, under the provisions of the 2018 Abortion Regulation Act, thereafter an abortion must be performed in a hospital, and only in exceptional circumstances where continuing the pregnancy would put the woman’s life or health at serious risk or where the baby is likely to die within 28 days of birth due to a foetal abnormality.
Several hundred women a year have travelled to the UK for abortions since 2018, though numbers have dropped dramatically since the pandemic restrictions began in March of last year.
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