Precious Life respond to: ‘Abortion: Doctors tied to 'apron strings' of legal profession’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-31661981
“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.”
The above quote from Mahatma Gandhi comes to mind when considering the latest absurdities in Amnesty International’s report into women’s access to ‘abortion services’ in Northern Ireland.
According to Grainne Teggart, a Northern Ireland spokesperson for Amnesty International, “One of the most concerning issues to come out of this report is that there is a post code lottery in Northern Ireland and that means that some women can access abortion services and others can't and that can vary across the various health trusts.”
Abortion services. It is quite strange that Amnesty International speak of abortion as if it were legal in Northern Ireland.
Abortion in Northern Ireland is a criminal offence, governed by sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and section 25 of the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1945. There is a defence which may be raised; that the abortion was necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman or to prevent a real and serious adverse effect on her physical or mental health. However, as is the case for any other criminal offence, this defence is not automatic and depends on the circumstances of the act carried out. The sole purpose of the above legislative provisions is the protection of the unborn child.
Amnesty International and other abortion advocates speak of the ‘climate of fear’ to describe the ‘chilling effect’ of ‘unclear guidelines coupled with criminal regulation’, as if the above legislative provisions were an injustice imposed on healthcare professionals in Northern Ireland. But this ‘climate of fear’ and ‘chilling effect’ is quite reasonable. Otherwise, without the scrutiny of the criminal law, a murderer could drag his victim from the safety of her home, stab her and leave her to die, wash his hands and carry on as usual.
Robin Ashe, a consultant gynaecologist at Antrim Area Hospital and chair of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in Northern Ireland, gets to the root of pro-abortion healthcare professionals’ contempt for the criminal law: “We aren't used to being tied to the apron strings of the legal profession, quite frankly.”
But why should healthcare professionals be granted impunity from the criminal law?
Robin Ashe continued, “Our colleagues felt in dealing with patients who have a fatal foetal abnormality that they may be prosecuted as a result of agreeing with the patient a legal termination of pregnancy.”
But where is the evidence that any abortion carried out in Northern Ireland is ‘legal’? Where is the evidence that the abortion was necessary to prevent a real and serious adverse effect on the pregnant mother’s physical or mental health?
Abortion should not be understood as a ‘health service’, a ‘treatment’ for a physical or mental condition, as it is in fact the deliberate killing of an unborn child, and a criminal offence in Northern Ireland. In the interests of a democratic society, and the protection of our most vulnerable and defenceless citizens, healthcare professionals need to be held accountable to the criminal law