Northern Ireland's justice minister David Ford has said that he will hold a public consultation on whether the country’s abortion laws should be changed to permit women to have an abortion on the grounds of foetal abnormality.
Mr Ford said that that the consultation process would begin by Easter next year, and would also cover the provision of abortion in cases of incest and rape.
The move comes following the cases of two women who discovered that their unborn babies had a foetal abnormality known as anencephaly.
Pressure
The cases have been widely covered by the media and are being used to increase pressure for a weakening of Northern Ireland's abortion laws, which permit a termination only if it is “necessary to preserve the life of the woman or there is a risk of real and serious adverse effect on her physical or mental health, which is either long-term or permanent”.
The proposals would allow the 1967 Abortion Act to be extended to Northern Ireland.
Opposed
The DUP has said that it was fundamentally opposed to the 1967 Act which it says permits “the delivery of abortion on demand”.
A party spokesman said: “We want to see as few abortions as possible take place in Northern Ireland.”
Sinn Féin also said that it did not support the extension of the 1967 Act.
“We will participate in the consultation process, as it is important that there is as much consensus as possible across society built on this issue,” a party spokesperson said.
“I'm sure all of the other parties, and wider society in general, will do likewise.”
The SDLP also said that it “felt immense sympathy and compassion” for women with a diagnosis of “fatal foetal abnormality”, but said that it nevertheless opposed the extension of the 1967 Act.
Warning
Warning against the proposals in his blog, Dr Peter Saunders of the Christian Medical Fellowship said:
“Presently the law in Northern Ireland offers legal protection to babies with disability. But were it to change, even for extreme cases, the British experience demonstrates how things would quickly escalate and how public attitudes would change.
“Furthermore, contrary to public perception, the psychological trauma for women having abortions for fetal disability is often very significant.
“Northern Ireland currently has a law which protects disabled babies and allows abortion only when the mother’s life or health is under very serious threat. It already has built into it the provision for judges and prosecutors to temper justice with mercy in hard cases.
“We must resist any attempt to weaken it further.”
Alternative approach
In a separate blog, Dr Peter Saunders has provided a number of reasons why parents (and doctors) should think twice about aborting children with anencephaly, and why society should be advocating an alternative approach to abortion in the case of foetal abnormality.
You can read the full blog here.
Dr Saunders also joined the abortion debate on the Nolan show in October. You can listen to the full debate here >
Sources: