Pro-life action

without exception FROM CONCEPTION by LIAM GIBSON

At the stroke of midnight on Tuesday 22 October 2019, Northern Ireland’s unborn babies were stripped of all meaningful legal protection “until capable of being born alive”.1 Abortion, which just moments before, had been presumptively unlawful was suddenly decriminalised and the Province was faced with the prospect of the most extreme abortion regime in Europe.

On 4 November, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland launched a public consultation on the shape of new regulations due to be introduced by 31 March 2020. By examining these proposals, we can see the kind of framework the abortion industry is now working vigorously to impose across the whole of the United Kingdom.

• For the most part, abortion will be available on demand. Two “healthcare professionals”, rather than registered medical practitioners, would rubber-stamp each request - no questions asked.

• While the sale of abortifacient drugs without a prescription will remain unlawful, their use will not be an offence. This anomaly is likely to incentivise self-induced abortions.

• So-called flexibility within the system is also likely to allow abortions to take place in a greater variety of locations than currently permitted by the

Abortion Act.

• There is flexibility too on the question of time- limits. While the proposals envisage abortion on demand until 12 to 14 weeks gestation (around 90 per cent of abortions in England and Wales are performed before week 13), abortion would still be available up to the 22 to 24-week period, and perhaps even later, for a range of vague excuses.

However, there would be no fixed upper limit for children diagnosed with an allegedly serious mental or physical impairment.

© LIFE ISSUES INSTITUTE

A BABY ELEVEN WEEKS FROM CONCEPTION (IMAGE ENLARGED) would be a serious mistake. Abortion is always a violent attack on a vulnerable child and there is no acceptable level of violence against children. Since every member of the human family shares an equal right to life, the law must protect all unborn children regardless of their disabilities, the stage of their development or the circumstances of their conception. If respect for human life is ever to be restored the pro-life movement must insist on this without equivocation or apology.

The failure to defend the weakest and most vulnerable of our children has helped to normalise abortion. And it is this normalisation which, more than anything else, has paved the way for decriminalisation. Only when the pro-life movement demands that the law protects all unborn babies from the lethal violence of abortion will society recognise it for what it is. And only when we elect lawmakers who are genuinely committed to defending all children without exception can we hope to defeat it.

As we busily prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ, we must not forget the hundreds of thousands of innocent children created in His image who are threatened by the evil of abortion.

Such a shocking regime will cause some people to call for restrictions on time limits or argue that healthy babies of healthy mothers shouldn’t be aborted. This

1. Section 25 of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 1945 continues to prohibit the destruction of a child “capable of being born alive”.