The Northern Ireland Assembly has rejected legislative changes aimed at easing the region’s abortion restrictions.
In a vote at Stormont on an amendment to the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1945, Members of the Local Assembly (MLAs) rejected, by 59 to 40, a proposal to allow for terminations up to birth based on foetal abnormality. The amendment had been tabled by Alliance Party MLAs Stewart Dickson and Trevor Lunn.
The latest rejection comes despite a ruling late last year by Justice Mark Horner at Belfast’s High Court that the North’s lack of exceptions in its abortion ban for babies who will die at or not long after birth, represented “a gross interference with [a woman’s] personal autonomy”. The North’s Attorney General John Larkin QC subsequently announced his intention to appeal that ruling, based on his contention that it breached the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).
Ahead of the Stormont vote, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) called for the issue of abortion in Northern Ireland to be fully examined by a commission which would report to MLAs within six months. A spokesperson for the party said: “We believe that this issue should best be dealt with in a measured way rather than in haste and without the benefit of appropriate scrutiny. Rushed law can often turn out to be bad law.”
Also ahead of the vote, the Catholic Bishops of Northern Ireland issued a statement in which they called on MLAs not only to defend unborn life, but to be aware of misleading language around ‘foetal abnormalities’.
“Such life-limiting conditions in pregnancy, including anencephaly, are sometimes inaccurately described as ‘fatal’ or ‘lethal’ abnormalities, implying that death has effectively occurred already or that a time of death can be predicted with certainty,” the prelates explained. “This is totally misleading. The reality is that every case is different. Some seriously ill babies will die before birth and others will live for a few hours, others for weeks or months while some will live for significantly longer. This is an acknowledged medical fact. No doctor can tell for certain how long any baby in these circumstances will live.
“We ask Members of Assembly, in the interests of a truly compassionate and caring society, in which the most vulnerable are protected equally and with the same dignity as others, to reject the proposed abortion amendment and to work instead for the right of parents to peri-natal hospice services to support them in caring for their terminally ill child until natural death.”
