Barbara Mary Hewson was an Anglo-Irish barrister with a practice in public law in both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.
18 Facts About Barbara Hewson
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Barbara Hewson was interested in reproductive health and the rights of pregnant women, the mentally incapacitated and the mentally ill.
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Barbara Hewson studied English at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge.
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Barbara Hewson obtained a Diploma in Law at the Polytechnic of Central London, now the University of Westminster.
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In 1987, Barbara Hewson began her career in the Chancery bar, doing cases about wills, land and trusts, and she then joined a chambers specialising in EC and public law.
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Barbara Hewson was critical of the Court of Appeal's ruling in the case of Jodie and Mary, the Maltese conjoined twins, in 2002, and acted for anti-abortion campaigner Bruno Quintavalle in an unsuccessful bid to stop the twins' separation.
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Barbara Hewson had been a trustee of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service since 2007.
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Barbara Hewson was made an Honorary Fellow of the University of Westminster in 2012.
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Barbara Hewson was a founder-member of the Association of Women Barristers in 1991.
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Barbara Hewson was long opposed to state paternalism in the field of medical decision-making, and strongly supported patient autonomy.
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Barbara Hewson supported abortion rights for women, and women's rights in childbirth, arguing that abortion should be removed from criminal law.
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Barbara Hewson was involved in controversy in 2013, after the Press Officer of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children strongly urged her to remove or reword an article she had written for the online magazine Spiked on 8 May entitled "Yewtree is Destroying the Rule of Law," a few hours after it was published.
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Barbara Hewson's article criticised the role of the NSPCC and the Metropolitan Police in treating complainants as "victims" in the wake of the Savile scandal, and the proliferation of prosecutions of elderly defendants.
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Barbara Hewson rejected the NSPCC's demand, citing Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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Barbara Hewson received menacing messages, via social media, but many messages of support via e-mail and bloggers, concerned by Operation Yewtree and supporting the principle of free speech.
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Barbara Hewson was profiled in The Times Law Section on 26 September 2013.
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On 25 October 2013, Barbara Hewson was one of 100 women invited by the BBC to a day of debate and discussion about women's role in society.
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Barbara Hewson then wrote an article for Spiked amplifying her views.