CARE: New abortion laws will endanger both women and babies, rather than protect them

It’s tragic because devolution has been ignored and by-passed by MPs and peers at Westminster and there will be long-term consequences of them doing so.

It is doubly tragic because the new laws will endanger women and babies, rather than protecting them.

This is not progress; it is a retrograde step.

Abortion will now be legal in Northern Ireland on the grounds of disability and gender, there will be no effective regulation until at least March 2020 and even that is not guaranteed.

The people of Northern Ireland deserve more than this.

We continue to believe that both lives matter and our work to be a voice for the voiceless and to argue for a better way that upholds the dignity of both mothers and babies will go on.

Nola Leach, CARE chief executive