Figures published by the UK’s Department of Health show that 833 women from Northern Ireland travelled to England and Wales for the procedure last year.

Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland programme director, said: “Abortion not being lawful doesn’t mean that Northern Ireland women don’t have abortions.

“It means that they either seek those services elsewhere or risk prosecution under Northern Ireland’s archaic laws by ordering abortion pills over the internet.

“833 women have been forced to make that lonely journey in 2015. It was a similar number in 2014 and will likely be the same again this year.

“The Northern Ireland government clearly does not mind women having abortions just as long as they’re not happening here. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ is not a viable health policy in 2016.

“Northern Ireland’s abortion law needs to be brought out of the nineteenth century and into the 21st.”