MPS and Lords should respect views of elected politicians here and vote down new abortion law

ON behalf of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the largest Protestant denomination in Northern Ireland, I am appealing to members of the House of Commons and House of Lords to vote against the Abortion (Northern Ireland) No 2 Regulations 2020 this week.

The decision to impose draft regulations was made in a vote last July during which 100% of MPS elected by the people of Northern Ireland, who were present, voted against the change.

In that moment we were disenfranchised on a matter of key importance. This was made worse by the fact that some MPS suggested that there was a human right imperative for doing so, relating to the CEDAW Convention.

The CEDAW Convention, an unelected and non-judicial UN committee, does not even mention abortion and has no standing to “read in” a right to abortion in UK legislation. Northern Ireland was further disrespected by the fact that, in the resulting consultation, 79% of submissions rejected the Government’s proposals; views which have been ignored.

Moreover, the Government compounded the difficulty by not giving Parliament the opportunity to repeal Section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2020 once the Assembly had been restored. This would have returned responsibility for developing a new abortion law to the devolved institutions.

Instead, it proceeded to develop regulations that are more permissive than those required by the legislation, which even pave the way for abortion on request based on gender selection.

On Tuesday, June 2, the Assembly did have its say when a cross-party majority voted to “reject the imposition of abortion legislation which extends to all non-fatal disabilities, including Down’s syndrome”.

Indeed, in two separate votes a total of 75 out of 90 MLAS made it clear that they do not support abortion on the basis of non-fatal disability.

As Christians we not only believe that people are precious because they are made in the image of God; we also believe in respecting each other.

In the United Kingdom that means its different constituent parts respecting each other and affording each other proper constitutional due process, something that has been entirely absent in the development of this legislation.

REV DANIEL KANE

Convener, Council for Public Affairs Presbyterian Church in Ireland