The landmark case marks the first time that the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) has been challenged on a decision relating to Northern Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws.

The mother faces two charges of unlawfully procuring and supplying the abortion drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, with intent to procure a miscarriage, contrary to the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.

Amnesty International, an intervenor in the case, said that she faces a criminal trial and up to 10 years in prison if her challenge is unsuccessful.

Grainne Teggart, Amnesty’s Northern Ireland campaign manager, said: “This ground-breaking case is a direct challenge to the criminalisation of women and abortion in Northern Ireland.

“This is a mother who has been treated like a common criminal for helping her daughter source medication that is prescribed free on the NHS in every other part of the UK.

“Women in Northern Ireland are being hauled through the courts for trying to access abortion pills, whilst this often-vital service is rightly becoming more accessible for women in England. This is such obvious and cruel injustice.

“We urge the judges to consider this case and its implications carefully, and listen to all of those who are calling for an end to this demeaning, harmful and unjust law.

“This mother is not a criminal. Her daughter is not a criminal. Women who want to access abortions in Northern Ireland are not criminals – the law should not treat them as such.”