A high court judge has ruled that Northern Ireland’s almost outright ban on abortion breaches the human rights of women and girls, including rape victims.

The historic judgment, delivered in Belfast on Monday, could lead to women and girls who are the victims of rape and incest as well those suffering from fatal foetal abnormalities having terminations in Northern Irish hospitals.

The Royal College of Midwives has welcomed the landmark judgement in Belfast High Court. Breedagh Hughes, the RCM’s Northern Ireland Director, said it would give some legal protection for all health professionals faced with the possibility of carrying out terminations in local hospitals

Hughes said: “Today’s ruling is extremely welcome. It now gives midwives and other health professionals legal protection and a release from the fear of prosecution. This will enable midwives to offer women who have a diagnosis of fatal foetal anomaly the appropriate care, support and advice that they also have often been denied because of the Assembly’s inertia.”

Hughes said that the failure of local politicians to legislate in favour of some limited forms of abortion had put her members and other medical staff at risk of arrest and prosecution

But Northern Ireland’s attorney general later said he was considering whether to appeal the ruling.

At present, under a 19th-century law, local medical teams could be jailed for life for carrying out abortions even in these circumstances. Unlike the rest of the UK, the Abortion Act 1967 has never applied to Northern Ireland and since devolution was restored the Stormont assembly has resisted any attempt to relax the near-total ban on terminations in local hospitals.

Read the article “Northern Ireland Law on Abortion Ruled ‘Incompatible with Human Rights’” on theguardian.com.