The British territory with Europe's harshest abortion laws

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 Thursday, May 10, 2018 - 11:00

The tiny British territory of Gibraltar has the harshest anti-abortion laws anywhere in Europe - the penalty for breaching the law is life imprisonment. But with Brexit looming and the Irish abortion referendum just weeks away, campaigners are hoping for change. 

Gibraltar's residents, who live on a two-mile strip of land at the tip of Spain, are British citizens, and many feel a deep affinity with the UK.

But in one respect they are very different.

Unlike in England, Scotland and Wales - where abortion can legally be performed - abortion in Gibraltar is punishable by life imprisonment under section 162 of the 2011 Crimes Act.

"I don't see how we can say we are part of the EU, part of Britain, and have such a difference in that respect. It's ridiculous," Rosalina Oliva tells the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme.

She is a resident of Gibraltar who crossed the border into Spain to have an abortion in 2008.

"Mentally, I wasn't strong enough to go through another pregnancy. It was something I decided there and then I couldn't do, in the circumstances I was in," she says.

She says it was "daunting" to have to travel to an unfamiliar country - with a healthcare system she did not fully understand - to have such an "invasive" procedure.

10-05-18 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR