PRECIOUS LIFE APPLY TO BE THIRD PARTY IN LATEST LEGAL ABORTION CHALLENGE
Precious Life has made an application to the High Court in Belfast to intervene as an interested party. Aiden Carlin Solicitors have written to the court requesting that Mr Justice Maguire exercise discretion in favour of intervention in this very important case.
It has been alleged that a woman who has had two abortions because her unborn children were diagnosed with life-limiting conditions has taken to the courts. Her lawyers are seeking a judicial review of the Department of Health’s failure to issue guidelines ‘on abortion in Northern Ireland’.
In response to this latest attempt to override the democratic process, Bernadette Smyth, the director of Precious Life, commented:
“Abortion is a criminal offence in Northern Ireland, governed by sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and section 25 of the Criminal Justice Act 1945. Guidelines cannot change the law. This can only happen at the Northern Ireland Assembly."
It has been alleged that the woman in question travelled to England to have an abortion when she tragically discovered that her unborn twins were diagnosed with a life-limiting condition in 2013. Earlier this year, the woman became pregnant again but later discovered that the unborn child had also been diagnosed with a life-limiting condition. However, it has also been alleged that she was able to have an abortion at a hospital in Belfast.
“The question that needs to be asked is, ‘Where is the evidence that continuing the pregnancy would have ‘serious consequences for her mental health’?’ The woman’s lawyers are using the same old erroneous argument that a failure to issue guidelines breaches her family and private life entitlements under the European Convention on Human Rights.
“No international human rights body or convention confers a right to abortion. Specifically with regard to the right to privacy, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights made clear in A, B & C v Ireland that ‘Article 8 cannot, accordingly, be interpreted as conferring a right to abortion.’ The right to privacy can never permit the killing of another human being,” Smyth concluded.