A mother and her teenage daughter have lost an appeal against the government’s refusal to allow women in Northern Ireland to have abortions on the NHS.

In 2012, when her 15-year-old daughter revealed an unwanted pregnancy, one Northern Irish mother took her and did what 800 other women from her country, and 3,600 from the Republic of Ireland, do each year: traveled to mainland Britain for a termination. She had to pay hundreds of pounds (dollars) for it because she was excluded from free abortion services.

Pro-abortion campaigners have challenged police to arrest them in protest at what they see as Northern Ireland’s unjust laws on terminations.

She added that up up to 2,000 women leave Northern Ireland each year to access abortion services because of the “highly restrictive laws” and because “no pathway into the NHS exists as the Department of Health is yet to publish termination of pregnancy guidance”.

Three judges on Wednesday upheld a previous High Court decision ruling that the teenager wasn’t entitled to a state-funded abortion in England.

Following the judgment, the women’s lawyer, Angela Jackman from the law firm Simpson Millar, said they were considering taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The challenge was dismissed but the women’s solicitor said they do not intend to give up.

Because Northern Ireland is not covered by the 1967 Abortion Act, which applies in the rest of the United Kingdom, the judge ruled this was not a discrimination issue.

Lord Justice Elias said: “I do not accept this argument”.

He said: “It is not irrational to take the view that English taxpayers should not have to bear the cost of providing abortion services to women from Northern Ireland”.

The demonstrators have been angered by the recent prosecution of a woman for allegedly helping to obtain abortion pills, and argue that since they freely admit to doing exactly that, they too should be prosecuted en masse.

Abortion in Northern Ireland, according to current law, “is only legal in exceptional circumstances if the life or long-term health of a pregnant woman is at risk”.

In February, Amnesty called Northern Ireland’s “draconian” abortion laws “the harshest in Europe”.