Abortion is still punishable with a life sentence in one UK territory

As hard as it is to believe in 2018, the UK overseas territory of Gibraltar still hands out life sentences to women who get abortions. Women who wish to get an abortion must risk crossing the border or make the journey to the UK.

Despite advertising itself as a modern city, with a thriving economy – in 2017 its gross domestic product per capita was the fourth highest in the world – the small city has the harshest abortion laws in all of Europe. In Section 162(1) of the 2011 Gibraltar Crimes Act: “A pregnant woman who, with intent to procure her own miscarriage, unlawfully administers to herself any poison or other noxious thing, or unlawfully uses any other means with that intent, commits an offence or is liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.”

Speaking to The Independent, Yolanda Garcia talked about how she was forced to cross the border and pay for an abortion in a foreign clinic.

“The whole thing cost me €500 all in,” she says. “I couldn’t afford to go to a proper specialist clinic in the UK or one in a bigger Spanish city like Malaga, so I had to go to a doctor in La Linea.

“Immediately, I did not feel comfortable – his practice was dirty and his staff rude. I felt like I was on a conveyor belt.”

She contracted endometritis from her botched abortion, a lifelong infection in the lining of the uterus and genital tract which results in severe and near-constant stomach cramps. Now, a few years later, she’s finding she cannot conceive, and she’s too afraid to tell her husband or her doctor about the abortion.

Yolanda’s story is, unfortunately, one of many in the region. The Gibraltar Women’s Association is a small group rising up against the laws, they’re hoping to present research and change the hearts and minds of the conservative city.

“We like to think we are Gibraltarian suffragettes,” said a spokesperson for the group, “We don’t encourage women to get abortions but we think they should have the choice: we are pro-choice.”

Read more about their story here

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