New drama tonight & tomorrow BBC1 9pm ... 3 Families

Anyone else fancy watching it?

“It was only two years ago that the women of Northern Ireland were granted the right to an abortion, 52 years after the rest of the UK. This two-part piece, written by Gwyneth Hughes, dramatises the true stories of a trio of women in Northern Ireland wanting abortions but denied them prior to the law changing. We meet two in episode one and that’s enough, given the emotional toll their unwanted pregnancies take on them and us. Sinéad Keenan, who packed such a punch in 2017’s Little Boy Blue, turns in another gutsy performance as a warrior mum: she’s Theresa, who contravenes her own beliefs to help her 15-year-old daughter terminate a pregnancy and ends up in trouble with the law. Elsewhere, mum-to-be Hannah (Amy James-Kelly) learns that not only does her longed-for baby have fatal fetal abnormalities, but that she must carry it to full term.

The anonymised tales are allowed to unfold gradually in order to engender indignation in viewers at the stress the women endure and the treatment meted out by a heartless system. The opener draws us in with two powerful personal tales that put a human face on thorny policy issues. Concludes tomorrow.”