‘Vibrating with rage’: Actress Waugh furious at abortion bill amendment
ACTRESS Bronagh Waugh was left “vibrating with rage” after a bill to amend Northern Ireland’s abortion laws was passed by the Assembly.
The Derry Girls star made her comments after DUP MLA Paul Givan presented the Severe Foetal Impairment Abortion Bill before the Assembly on Monday, urging MLAS to back the move to “tackle disability discrimination”.
The Private Member’s Bill seeks to prevent abortions being carried out in cases of non-fatal disabilities, including Down’s syndrome.
Assembly Members voted 48 votes to 12 to pass the Bill on to the second stage. Sinn Fein MLAS abstained.
Reacting to the vote, Waugh tweeted: “It’s just one thing after another. It’s exhausting. I am vibrating with rage. A year on from abortion being decriminalised in N Ireland, we still don’t have access & now this.
“Shame on all those MLAS who want to restrict our human rights, block our access to healthcare.”
The Coleraine actress (38), who recently announced she was pregnant with her first child with her husband Richard Peacock, has long campaigned for free, safe and legal abortion access.
Green Party leader Clare Bailey said the decision by the Assembly represented a “clawing back of hard won rights for women” highlighting how some MLAS “waxed lyrical” on International Women’s Day only to support a bill “that violates women and subjects them to torture and degrading treatment”.
Sinn Fein’s abstention was widely criticised by both prochoice and pro-life campaigners.
Emma Campbell of Alliance for Choice said: “We don’t expect an understanding of human rights from the DUP, but Sinn Féin should be pushing for significant increases in funding to help disabled people, as well as ensuring free safe legal and local abortion care on the whole island of Ireland.
“We urge Sinn Féin to review their party policy in line with the minimum human rights standards and stop criminalising people who have devastating decisions to make about a wanted pregnancy.”
Aontú councillor Emmet Doyle said Sinn Fein had “turned their backs on those they had made a commitment on abortion by speaking repeatedly against a Bill but then abstaining on it”.
He added: “Sinn Féin have been speaking from both sides of the mouths on abortion in the North for years.
“At the doors they are prolife. On Twitter they’re for abortion without limit or protection. They speak in Stormont on supporting disability rights. Yet without compassion they abstain on a bill that seeks to protect children with Down Syndrome from abortion”.
A spokesperson for Sinn Fein said the party “believes abortion should be available where a woman’s life, health or mental health is at risk and in cases of fatal foetal abnormality”.
“The British Government in response to the DUP’S proposed bill have also said publicly that they will ensure that abortion legislation remains in line with CEDAW and therefore the DUP are aware that it will have no material effect. Instead, the DUP aims to pit one vulnerable group of people against another,” they said.
“For that reason Sinn Féin abstained on the vote on the DUP Bill.”
The new laws here, brought in at Westminster, allow abortion in all circumstances up to 12 weeks.
Terminations are permitted up to 24 weeks when there is a risk to the woman’s physical or mental health.
There is no time limit in cases of fatal foetal abnormality or when there has been a diagnosis of a serious physical or mental impairment that would cause a serious disability.