People of Northern Ireland must not give an inch to the extremists of the pro-abortion movement

NOW that abortion is embedded in law in the Republic, there will be a campaign to bring Northern Ireland into line on this issue.

Those who support a pro-abortion agenda will do their utmost to make the province capitulate to their demands. Not until the last bastions opposed to abortion fall will they be satisfied.

This will all be presented on the basis that a woman has an absolute right to control her own body, which is true — up to a point.

However, in the hierarchy of rights, the right to life holds first place; it takes precedence over all other rights, which are subsumed under that primary right.

If a woman freely and voluntarily enters into an intimate relationship which leads to her pregnancy, she forfeits her right to control her own body.

It has now become a life-support system for a helpless, innocent and dependent being, which has a right to life.

Once the Trojan horse of abortion has taken root in any state, other respectable taboos also come under assault.

Currently, in the rest of the UK, a campaign is stirring to extend the right of abortion virtually up to the full term of pregnancy.

That makes the difference between abortion and infanticide the width of the womb wall.

Not far behind all that will come the clamour to allow assisted dying, further perverting the role of medical practitioners, whose vocation demands that they do their best to preserve life, rather than bring an end to it.

I hope that Stormont and the people of Northern Ireland stand firm against the arguments of those euphemistically calling themselves ‘pro-choice’ campaigners.

There should be no surrender to such anti-life campaigns.

DENIS BRUCE Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire