10 May 2021 • 10:24pm
Amy James Kelly and Colin Morgan star in the BBC drama
Credit: Peter Marley
Gwyneth Hughes is a screenwriter with a varied CV. Her credits include ITV’s adaptation of Vanity Fair, which was far better than the ratings suggested, and the Keeley Hawes drama Honour, which was far worse than audiences expected.
In
Three Families (BBC One), she has turned her attention to Northern Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws, and it is not one of her better efforts. It is from the producers of Three Girls, the BBC’s dramatisation of the Rochdale grooming gangs scandal, but nowhere near the same quality.
Last modified on Wed 12 May 2021 08.28 EDT
It was only a couple of years ago, Iâd warrant, that the majority of people in Great Britain became aware of the fact that, although the 1967 Abortion Act has permitted the termination of unwanted pregnancies for the past 50-odd years, its remit never extended to Northern Ireland. An extraordinary grassroots campaign to give the countryâs women the same rights that exist in England culminated in Westminster forcing the decriminalisation of the procedure in 2019.
Gwyneth Hughesâs drama Three Families (BBC One) began in 2013 and took in the situation at the time, and the fight for liberalisation of the law, through a series of personal rather than political lenses. The trio of narratives were based on Hughesâs interviews with three women whose lives were altered by the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.
True horror behind new BBC drama Three Families as pregnant teen mums risk prison to have abortions
Hayley Minn
Hayley Minn
ABORTION in Northern Ireland has long been a controversial topic.
And Three Families, BBC’s newest drama, starting tonight, tells the heartbreaking true stories of three different women all affected by the shame surrounding abortion in Northern Ireland between 2013 and 2019.
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Sinead Keenan plays the mother of a pregnant teen in Three FamiliesCredit: BBC
When abortion was decriminalised in England in 1967, Northern Ireland didn t follow, and when the Republic of Ireland voted to repeal its strict abortion laws in 2018, Northern Ireland still didn t - until 2019.
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Between The Covers is back with Sara Cox
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