Derry Girls stars to join Westminster abortion demo

Nicola Coughlan, who plays Clare Devlin in the popular Channel 4 series, and Siobhan McSweeney, who plays Sister Michael, will join 26 other women in a symbolic protest next week.

Amnesty International, which is organising the event, says the 28 women marching over Westminster Bridge carrying suitcases will symbolise the number of women who travel outside Northern Ireland each week for an abortion.

Each suitcase will contain names of 62,000 people who are calling for changes, signatures that the participants will bring to the Northern Ireland Office at Whitehall.

The campaigners want the UK government to intervene and make law changes in the Province in the absence of devolved ministers due to the power-sharing crisis at Stormont.

A termination is only permitted in Northern Ireland if a woman’s life is at risk or if there is a risk of permanent and serious damage to her mental or physical health.

The 1967 Abortion Act which governs the rest of the UK was not extended to Northern Ireland.

Ahead of next Tuesday’s demonstration, Coughlan referenced the recent liberalisation of the abortion laws in the Irish Republic, following last year’s historic referendum.

“It was such a proud moment when we repealed the Eighth in Ireland but it’s now time our sisters in Northern Ireland get the change so desperately overdue,” she said.

“Let’s do this for women everywhere. Women who have abortions are not criminals, it’s time the law stopped treating them as such.”

McSweeney said the region had been “neglected for too long”.

“It makes me so angry that women there are being denied bodily autonomy and health care services available to others in the rest of the UK and Ireland, they have reproductive rights too,” she said.