Pro-life group queries OBE for Belfast abortion provider in New Year Honours

Anti-abortion lobby outfit Both Lives Matter said rewarding Nicola Louise Bailey with a place on the New Year Honours list was part of a wider attempt to "normalise" terminations.

Although not currently based in Northern Ireland, Ms Bailey spent most of her career in various nursing roles in Belfast, and her citation on the honours list reads simply: "For services to Healthcare in Northern Ireland.”

Ms Bailey herself put the award down to her work on "improving sexual health and reproductive health services".

A press release from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) congratulated her on being granted the OBE, describing her as someone "who defied opposition to provide early medical abortions to women in Northern Ireland during the pandemic".

"Operating outside formal commissioned services, Ms Bailey's clinic at Belfast Health and Social Care Trust offered early medical abortions within days of lockdown being imposed, meaning women were no longer able to travel to England," said the RCN.

"Ms Bailey was named RCN Nurse of the Year in 2021 for her passion for promoting women's health services, and her bravery in continuing to run them in the face of protests and political opposition to abortion services."

The RCN also said "she has been part of the successful campaign for safe zones around abortion clinics to prevent patients being harassed by protestors".

The RCN's press release also carried a quote from Ms Bailey herself in which she said: "It is a great honour to receive this award and to be recognised for doing something that I feel passionately about – improving sexual health and reproductive health services for women…

"This honour will further drive me to improve women's health services, ensuring they have access to the care they need, when they need it.

"While I'm pleased that abortion services have finally been commissioned in Northern Ireland, there are still huge gaps in health services for women across the UK and I'll continue to do whatever I can to fill them through my work."

But Dawn Mcavoy, co-founder of Northern Irish anti-abortion body Both Lives Matter, took issue with the awarding of an OBE to her.

"In this moment of intense pressure on the NHS it was encouraging to see many health workers feature in the New Years Honour list," she said.

"However, many people will be surprised and saddened to learn that a local nurse has been made an OBE for her ‘services to healthcare’, which the RCN links to terminations of unwanted unborn human beings in Northern Ireland.

"The issuing of a Royal award for services including the furthering of abortion, which remains a politically, culturally and morally sensitive and contested issue, sadly to us confirms a commitment to its provision and normalisation at the very heart of the British State."

The News Letter sought comment from Ms Bailey and the RCN, but none was forthcoming at time of writing.

– ‘ONE OF THE MOST CARING NURSES’ –

The abortion clinic Ms Bailey set up – known as the Rose Clinic – was up-and-running soon after terminations were decriminalised in spring 2020 (see notes on the law, below).

In 2021, she was nominated for an RCN award by gynecological specialist Dr Siobhan Kirk, who said: "Nicola regularly goes above and beyond the call of duty and is one of the most caring, compassionate and skilled nurses I have ever worked with.

"She deserves to be recognised for her immense efforts and dedication to nursing and to the women of Northern Ireland."

Given the Nurse of the Year award, Ms Bailey responded at the time: "This has been a team effort and I am proud to win on behalf of the whole team.

"We have provided an abortion service under difficult and challenging circumstances and have supported each other."

– LONG AND WINDING ROAD TO DECRIMINALISATION –

Arguably the main piece of law governing abortions in Northern Ireland was the Offences against the Person Act 1861, Sections 58 and 59.

These sections made it a criminal offence for women "to act with intent to procure a miscarriage", or for anyone to help them in doing so.

The maximum sentence was life imprisonment (though in reality, during modern times judges have handed down sentences which were vastly shorter).

This was amended slightly in 1945 to allow abortion to protect a mother's life.

In case law, this 1945 act came to be interpreted as meaning that abortion was allowed "where it is necessary to preserve the life of a woman or girl, or where there is a risk of real and serious adverse effect on her physical or mental health, which is either long term or permanent".

Then, in 1967, the Abortion Act came along.

It did away with these laws in GB, allowing for abortion up to 24 weeks if it is deemed that the "mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family" would suffer due to the pregnancy.

Abortion without time limit was also permitted if it would prevent "grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman" or if there was a "substantial risk" of the child being "seriously handicapped".

But the 1967 act never applied to Northern Ireland.

In 2019, the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act repealed the 1861 ban on abortions which still applied to the Province.

Then on March 31, 2020, new regulations took effect.

These permit abortion for any reason up to 12 weeks, and abortion up to 24 weeks "in cases where the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or girl, greater than the risk of terminating the pregnancy".

It also allowed abortion up-to-birth where a child would be "seriously disabled," or in order to prevent "grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or girl".

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