Northern Ireland votes to keep strong pro-life laws

Northern Ireland’s Legislative Assembly voted in the early hours of Thursday morning to maintain the country’s strong pro-life laws, despite intense pressure from Amnesty International, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC), and other pro-abortion groups.

By a vote of 59-40, the Members of the Legislative Assembly defeated Amendment 61, a proposal that would have allowed abortion when a preborn child is diagnosed with a fatal condition. In another 64-30 tally, lawmakers also voted to maintain Northern Ireland’s ban on abortion in cases of rape or incest.

The Abortion Act of 1967 decriminalizing abortion in the U.K. did not extend to Northern Ireland. The current law in Northern Ireland, which has a population of just under 2 million, allows for abortion only when two doctors agree carrying the baby to term puts the mother’s life at serious risk or is likely to cause her long-term psychological harm. This means only a few dozen abortions are carried out each year in Northern Ireland’s hospitals.

But almost 1,000 Northern Irish women travel to England each year to end their pregnancies, even though they are not entitled to free National Health Service abortions there.

Renewed efforts to change Northern Ireland’s abortion law came in 2013 after Sarah Ewert traveled from Northern Ireland to England to abort her 20-week-old preborn child. The baby had been diagnosed with anencephaly, a condition in which parts of the baby’s brain and skull do not develop. After Ewert returned home, she went to court to challenge Northern Ireland’s near-total abortion ban.

In November 2015, Belfast High Court Judge Mark Horner sided with the NIHRC’s contention that Northern Ireland’s abortion law violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights by not allowing abortion in cases of sexual crimes and fatal fetal anomalies. But a month later, although it was within his power, Horner decided it would be a “step too far” for him to rewrite the law. Instead, he ruled that decision should be left to Northern Ireland’s Legislative Assembly.

After Thursday’s vote, Bernadette Smyth, director of Precious Life, one of Northern Ireland’s leading pro-life groups, thanked lawmakers who voted against “these evil amendments.”

“They did the right thing, which was to protect mothers and uphold the right to life of all unborn children,” Smyth said.

With almost 25,000 annual live births in Northern Ireland, the rate of live births to abortions (carried out inside or outside the country) is about 25 to 1. American women are six times more likely to abort their children: The rate of live births to abortions in the U.S. is about 4 to 1.