Abortion is not a human right but murder and the NI taxpayer must not be forced to pay for it

PRO-ABORTION campaigners, like Grainne Teggart, are disingenuous in their use of language as well as their aims (News, September 27).

1. The deliberate killing of an unborn child is not ‘healthcare’ — it is murder. In 98% of UK abortions the reasons were social, not health. How can any civilised society do such a thing?

2. To say that “medical professionals will be able to decline to take part in an abortion if they choose to do so” is only a temporary claim and cannot be trusted. For proof, look no further than the letters column on the same date, where the Abortion Rights Campaign is pushing for the exclusion of that very thing.

As one of the protesting midwives has said, they go into that work to bring new life into the world, not kill helpless babies. That is why such a large percentage of doctors and medical staff in the south are refusing to do so and why so many are concerned here.

3. Abortion is not a human right, either in the UN or anywhere else. I’m afraid that today’s supposed ‘liberals’ are once again proving the opposite — that not only must they get their own way at all costs, but that all opposition to it must be stamped on.

One further point: have the people in Northern Ireland stopped to think how much abortion is going to cost an already cash-strapped health service?

Is it right that people with cancer, multiple sclerosis, or muscular dystrophy, who already are having to wait longer than they should for appointments and treatment, should have even less chance of help if taxpayers’ money is being spent on something that, in these days of unlimited contraception, is unnecessary in 99% of cases?

STELLA WILSON Tandragee, Co Armagh