Duchess sparks a row after ‘backing’ abortion result

THE Duchess of Sussex was accused of expressing a ‘political’ opinion on abortion during her visit to Dublin.

Meghan, 36, has always been proud of her feminist principles and made a point of stating them on the Buckingham Palace website after her marriage to Prince Harry.

The Duchess was talking to a female senator on Tuesday night who later tweeted suggesting that the royal had agreed with Ireland’s recent referendum result in favour of legalising the procedure.

The politician, Catherine Noone, subsequently deleted the message and claimed it had actually been a ‘benign chat’ during which she expressed ‘no political opinion’. Her original tweet said: ‘A pleasure to meet Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex at the British Ambassador’s Residence this evening. The Duchess and I had a chat about the recent referendum result – she watched with interest and was pleased to see the result.’

After replies suggesting that Meghan may have broken royal protocol and could be ‘in trouble for expressing a political opinion’, she replaced it with a simple message saying what a pleasure it had been to meet her. She later wrote: ‘I clarified – it was a very benign chat, she expressed no political opinion. She was interested and charming. It was misleading so I deleted it.’

By convention, royals should refrain from commenting on politics.