Press Release
-- PRESS RELEASE --
Date: 22nd April 2015
Contact: Bernadette Smyth
Tel: 07956451655 / 02890278484
A change in policy on abortion will most certainly affect the DUP vote
Precious Life is alarmed that Peter Robinson, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of the Northern Ireland Assembly, has indicated that the DUP are ‘unlikely to oppose the Justice Minister David Ford’s proposal to allow abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality’. Instead, the DUP are ‘likely to be given a free vote on the issue’. According to Peter Robinson, ‘it would be “odd” for the party to propose a conscience clause bill but then deny its own members the right to exercise their conscience.’
It is worrying that members of a party that has historically and unwaveringly opposed abortion and promised their voters to ‘oppose any attempts to weaken Northern Ireland’s law on abortion at Stormont, Westminster or in Europe’ would buckle under pressure and ignore the conscience that has guided them and their voters all these years. Why would DUP ignore the democratic wishes of the 25,140 people who cried out for the protection of our unborn children during David Ford’s public consultation?
According to the party leader, ‘there are those who might take a different view on fatal foetal abnormalities if it were possible to determine whether the foetus could have life outside the womb.’ In response, Bernadette Smyth, the director of Precious Life, said, ‘no one, not even a consultant in maternal-foetal medicine, can determine exactly how long an unborn child will survive inside the womb or how long a child will survive when born’.
Most disturbingly, Peter Robinson announced that ‘if the child is going to be born dead, then that’s a very different set of circumstances than cutting life off.’ As the leader of DUP, Precious Life is shocked that Peter Robinson does not seem to understand that an unborn child is alive in the womb but targeted and torn from the sanctuary of his or her mother’s womb in an abortion.
Considering the horrifying nature of abortion, it is disturbing that Peter Robinson believes it is ‘far better that these issues are dealt with by a consultant and by the mother and the father in the privacy of a consulting room.’ If a politician cannot respect the right to life of an unborn child, how is he or she supposed to respect the life of his or her voters?
Precious Life is appealing to Peter Robinson and individual members of DUP to have the compassion to listen to Every Life Counts Northern Ireland, an organisation representing parents whose precious unborn children were diagnosed with terminal disabilities and who are urging better provision of perinatal hospice care in Northern Ireland. Derbhille McGill’s precious daughter, Clodagh Treise, was prenatally diagnosed with Patau Syndrome and received no support at her hospital:
‘We were left to cope with the devastating diagnosis and never got any help from anywhere. We were told that our baby would most probably die as soon as she was born. But the doctors were wrong. Clodagh Treise went on to live with her family for 33 days and every minute of every day is engraved in my heart. Every life is precious and has value; no matter how short that life may be. Proper perinatal hospice care must be given to pregnant mothers whose receive poor prenatal diagnoses.’
Bernadette Smyth, the director of Precious Life, said:
‘If any member of the DUP thinks that an unborn child having a terminal disability means that he or she is not deserving of his or her right to life, that member must be held accountable and explain why he has decided to betray the trust and support of his or her voters’.
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