PRECIOUS LIFE RESPONDS TO LORD DAVID STEEL’S CALL FOR CHANGE TO NORTHERN IRELAND’S ABORTION LAW
Lord David Steel, the man responsible for the private member’s bill which led to the notorious Abortion Act 1967 which is responsible for the deaths of 200,000 unborn children every year in England and Wales, said that by not legalising abortion in Northern Ireland, MLAs were discriminating against women.
In response to Steel’s calls for legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland, Bernadette Smyth states:
“The Northern Ireland Assembly has full legislative and executive authority for all matters that are the responsibility of its government departments and one of these matters is criminal justice. Abortion is a matter of criminal justice and a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly to debate and decide on.
“Lord David Steel needs to face the reality that abortion is lethal discrimination against vulnerable and defenceless unborn children, and that because of the Abortion Act 1967, Britain continues to lag behind Northern Ireland’s glowing standards of maternal health.
“According to a 2013 research paper by Byron Calhoun, John Thorp and Patrick Carroll, Northern Ireland is one of the safest places for pregnant women and their babies. Over the forty years of legalised abortion in Britain under the Abortion Act 1967, there has been a consistent pattern in which higher abortion rates have run parallel to higher incidences of stillbirths, premature births, low birth-weight, cerebral palsy, and maternal deaths as direct consequences of abortion. In contrast, Northern Ireland has displayed lower rates of all morbidities and mortality associated with legalised abortion in Britain.
“Because of our pro-life laws, women and babies are safer in Northern Ireland. Lord David Steel should be taking direction from our MLAs who have the best interests of women and their children at heart by upholding the rights of both mother and child.
“It is vitally important that the people of Northern Ireland come out on 5th May and vote only for political candidates who will stand strong in their defence of all unborn children to ensure that our pro-life laws never change.”