Health bodies have recommended no restrictions on abortion up to 24 weeks in Northern Ireland.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), the Royal College of Midwives and the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare are among the organisations supporting the call. 

Dr Carolyn Bailie, RCOG chair, told BBC News NI that placing restrictions on abortion prior to 24 weeks "only creates barriers for women".

"For too long women in desperate circumstances have been unable to access abortion care in Northern Ireland," Dr Bailie said.

"In recent years, women have had to travel to access services where a diagnosis of a life-limiting fetal anomaly has been made and where women have felt unable to continue the pregnancy to term."

CARE Chief Executive, Nola Leach, disagrees with these claims and accused the medical bodies of interfering unnecessarily in Northern Ireland's abortion laws. 

She called on lawmakers in Northern Ireland to introducing a "life-affirming" framework. 

"The position being taken by these professional health bodies is deeply regrettable," she said. 

"It is striking that GB medical bodies feel the need to interfere, ignoring the views of NI health professionals, many of whom are opposed to the new abortion framework.

"Abortion is a devolved issue and it is up to locally elected MLAs to decide on the exact nature of what the new abortion framework will look like.

"There are two lives that count in a pregnancy and this recommendation ignores completely the rights of the unborn baby.

"We call on MLAs to take action to ensure the new framework does not simply copy GB, but instead reflects the views of many within Northern Ireland who want life-affirming laws."

Antrim GP, Dr Andrew Cupples, echoed these sentiments, arguing on the BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme that abortion laws in Northern Ireland should be left to the province to decide. 

"It's typical of Great Britain-centric bodies wanting to enforce their model in Northern Ireland," he told the programme.

"We need a Northern Ireland-centric approach. There's no point in enforcing guidelines which have not been agreed locally and which have not taken into account the local scenarios, the local problems, the local issues and, especially, the local feelings.

"That would include the feelings of local NI healthcare professionals. I am very concerned that there is no mention of the significant body of Northern Ireland medical and health care workers who disagree with the proposed abortion legislation."

Northern Ireland is in the process of developing a new framework for abortion after it was controversially decriminalised by Westminster MPs last year. 

Dawn McAvoy, co-founder of the Both Lives Matter campaign, said, "Whose life matters? There are some questions that science alone cannot answer. Terminations of pregnancy based on choice alone may be legal, however they are a crime against our very humanity.

"Women deserve better than medical bodies aligning more closely to pro-abortion ideologies than science-based evidence.

"We urge our newly formed Northern Ireland Assembly and the Secretary of State to seek to maximise protections and enable both lives as far as humanly possible, because both lives matter."