Feature

Belfast’s battle over Brook

In Ulster the arrival of contraception advice for young people has met with a storm of protest. Lindsay McClintock reports

The Brook Advisory Association has just been given the go-ahead to open a centre for young people in Belfast. But if the protests at this announcement are anything to go by, the centre’s opening, scheduled for May, will be anything but a quiet affair.

Protesters have threatened to picket the centre and the homes of local health authority board members responsible for the decision. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has also urged local anti-Brook lobbyists to photograph clients entering the clinic as part of a US-style campaign to prevent its opening.

’Brook can’t go out and solve problems,’ says Betty Gibson of SPUC in Belfast. ‘They can’t do it in England and they can’t do it here. Northern Ireland people are not going to let this happen to their children, over here the family unit remains very much intact.’

She claims the Brook priority of confidentiality will destroy parental control and could even put incest victims in danger. She also echoes some protesters’ fears that the introduction of Brook will be the first step towards legalising abortion in the province.

The announcement of the arrival of Brook was always going to make waves in an area of the UK traditionally conservative when it comes to sex. The age of consent here is 17 (not 16 as in England), and the 1967 Abortion Act was never extended to include Northern Ireland.

But Stella Cunningham, manager of the Belfast Brook centre, insists that although they will provide broadly similar services to those on the mainland, they must adapt to operate under the law as it stands in Northern Ireland. Belfast Brook cannot therefore handle abortion referrals, and says that it will make use of existing agencies, such as the Ulster Pregnancy Advisory Association.

Alison Hadley, spokesperson for Brook, says: ‘It was anticipated that there would be a vociferous and sustained campaign against us, but then teenage sexuality is not an uncontroversial issue. We have been grossly misrepresented by SPUC and other anti-abortion agencies who think that we’re bringing abortion in through the back door.’

The Eastern Health and Social Services Board, responsible for the greater Belfast area, invited Brook to set up back in July 1991 after a ten-month study by the board highlighting an alarming rise in the number of babies born to young unmarried mothers. The Brook has been funded to provide only a contraceptive and counselling service aimed specifically at young people in Belfast.

Initial criticism of the decision to invite Brook came from an unlikely source. Concerned local GPs and lawyers, calling themselves the Medico-Legal Enquiry Group, objected to both the Brook philosophy and the board’s analysis of the problem. Belfast solicitor Philip Crossey, secretary of the group, explains: ‘The health board announced their decision having already made up their minds that Brook is the solution they want.’

The group believes the Brook is not the best solution to the problem of teenage sexuality in Northern Ireland, and that its frankness with young people goes against the grain of Northern Ireland society.

They want a more conservative approach, and in their study An agenda for debate state that: ‘Every act of sexual intercourse outside a committed relationship is dangerous... Sexual behaviour in adolescents is largely socially determined. We must work to change social attitudes for the sake of our young people’s health.’

Pro-brook campaigners have a very different perspective. Joan Wilson of the Ulster Pregnancy Advisory Association hopes the new service will reduce the number of people who seek her advice. Over half of her clients are less than 24 years old.

’I have been agitating for the Brook for 15 years. The protesters talk about an ideal world, but not everyone lives in it. It’s just a hysterical reaction. After all, any doctor can decide after consulting with a patient whether they are responsible and mature enough to have contraception.’

The board itself is sticking to its guns and providing £30,000 of public funds for Brook. They say the provision of a confidential service for young people in Belfast is essential, and that Brook could help to reduce the numbers of unwanted pregnancies in their area.

Controversy over the Belfast Brook continues. The debate has brought the issue of teenage sexuality into the open and, whatever the outcome, Northern Ireland looks set to deal with an area of public health which for so long has been brushed under the carpet.