Carla Lockhart and Nuala O’Loan: Regulations express contempt for the unborn, and for NI Assembly

The regulations came into effect on 31st March but the process began on 9th July last year when a London Labour MP moved an amendment to a Government Bill to totally change our abortion laws, even though abortion is a devolved matter.

100% of Northern Ireland MPs who take their seats in Parliament voted against the regulations. Many of our Peers voted against these changes too. But, due to abortion being a matter of conscience for the big parties in Westminster, the voices of Northern Ireland’s representatives were drowned out by the far more numerous English, Scottish and Welsh MPs and Lords, none of whom were elected or live in Northern Ireland.

Conservative, Labour, SNP and Liberal Democrat MPs ignored the views of Northern Ireland MPs and Peers and foisted extreme abortion regulations on us. What made it worse was the fact that they justified doing so by claiming that our laws violated an international law called the CEDAW Convention when in truth the Convention does not even mention abortion.

Since that moment Northern Ireland has been subjected to a litany of further abuses too long to list in full but including: the fact that the democratically elected House was only give 17 minutes to debate the radical abortion legislation that actually became law; the fact that the public consultation on the Regulations was half the normal length, 6 weeks, and all but 4 days of it coincided with the election; the fact that 79% of respondents told the Government, please don’t do this but they carried on any how;the fact that when devolution was restored in January, the Government failed to even give Parliament the opportunity to repeal the legislation and hand the matter back to the Assembly; the fact that when the Assembly voted against the Regulations the Northern Ireland Office Minister clung to the flawed and incorrect CEDAW argument, claiming that he would not withdraw the regulations because they are required by a Convention that does not even mention abortion and certainly does not require these specific regulations.

The Government knows that in Northern Ireland there are greater concerns about abortion than elsewhere in the UK, yet they have chosen to introduce Regulations that entrench a far more radical change in our law than Parliament required last July and have introduced an even more permissive abortion regime than exists in Great Britain.

When pressed on this the Government has said that the Regulations introduce a regime that is the same as in GB. It is correct that they allow abortion on demand to 24 weeks gestation and abortion up to birth for any disability, the appalling regime that exists in Great Britain.

In addition to this, however, the NI regulations go much further: they replace the protections in GB requiring that two doctors agree, with abortions potentially approved by just one nurse, they allow abortions to 12 weeks for any reason without qualification, thus rendering abortion on grounds of sex till 12 weeks lawful in a context where it is now possible to know the sex of the foetus from between 7 and 10 weeks.

It is appalling that a law which pro-abortionists say helps women, plainly perpetuates stereotypes and prejudices towards women.

In Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland if you take a human life illegally through abortion you face a prison sentence of up to 14 years and in some cases life. These regulations say that if someone illegally takes a human life through abortion in Northern Ireland they will only face a fine up to a maximum of £5000.

Amazingly the Regulations also introduce unthinkable discrimination into our law by affording viable human beings from 24 weeks gestation to birth, a general protection from abortion while allowing any viable human being of the same age to be terminated if they have a non-fatal disability like Down’s. The CEDAW Report specifically said that the new law should not perpetuate stereotypes and prejudices against those with a disability.

It is hard to conceive of a way in which the law could express with greater eloquence the fact that it views those with non-fatal disabilities as less worthy of protection than those who have no disability.

As disability campaigner Heidi Crowter, who has Down’s Syndrome says. ‘It tells people like me that we should not have been born.’

These regulations express contempt for the unborn and total disdain for the Northern Ireland Assembly.