Belfast, Northern Ireland, Mar 19, 2020 / 01:01 pm (CNA).- An English Member of Parliament and a US Congressman have joined calls for the British government to repeal the law dealing with abortion provision in Northern Ireland so the local government can legislate on the topic.
John Hayes, the Conservative MP for South Holland and The Deepings, and Chris Smith (R-NJ) have both urged that the region’s abortion laws be referred to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 decriminalized abortion in Northern Ireland and placed a moratorium on abortion-related criminal prosecutions, and obliges the UK government to create legal access to abortion in the region by March 31.
It was passed while the Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended, but the legislature resumed meeting in January.
“Though it is right to celebrate this restoration, we should remain cautious, for the foundations of the devolution settlement in Northern Ireland remain fragile. As the Province is an essential part of the United Kingdom, the UK Government has an ethical, as well as a constitutional obligation to defend and strengthen these foundations. Turning a blind eye to this duty would be a fundamental mistake,” Hayes wrote March 18 at Conservative Home.
“Just weeks ago we were celebrating the DUP and Sinn Fein putting aside differences to restore the assembly. Wouldn’t it be sadly ironic then if the UK Government imposed a policy on Northern Ireland, overriding devolution in the process, that unites the majority of voters from both parties in their hostility to Westminster.”
Hayes continued: “As many aspects of the proposed abortion framework go way beyond what is currently allowed in England and Wales, given the contrary views of the people in Northern Ireland, it seems likely this will be interpreted as the UK Government imposing its will on a reluctant part of the Kingdom which is doubtless disdainfully regarded by Whitehall’s liberal elite as antediluvian.”
Prior to the NI EF Act abortion was legally permitted in the region only if the mother’s life was at risk or if there was risk of long term or permanent, serious damage to her mental or physical health.
The British government held a public consultation on a proposed framework for the legal provision of abortion in Northern Ireland in November and December 2019. It proposed that elective abortions be available up to 12 or 14 weeks gestation.
It also proposed that “the gestational time limit in circumstances where the continuance of the pregnancy would cause risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or girl, or any existing children or her family, greater than the risk of terminating the pregnancy” be either 22 or 24 weeks.
In cases of fetal abnormality, the government proposed that abortion without time limit be available. It also proposed that abortion without time limit be allowed where there is risk to the life of the mother or it is necessary to provent grave permanent injury to her physical or mental health.
Hayes noted that the government’s proposal “went far beyond [the] limited legal requirements” of the NI EF Act.
“Quite why the Northern Ireland office officials chose to go so far beyond what Parliament wanted is a matter of speculation. Some say the Government might be using Northern Ireland as a ‘guinea pig’ to test policies before implementing them in England,” he wrote.
The MP noted that there is not “public demand in Northern Ireland for this greatly expanded abortion framework.”
The region rejected the Abortion Act 1967 that legalized abortion in England, Wales, and Scotland, and bills to legalize abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality, rape, or incest failed in the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2016.
Hayes proposed that “simplest way to stop the UK Government infringing on the devolution settlement is to repeal Section 9,” which would return “full control to the devolved administration.”
He warned that “feeding the feeling that Westminster is using Northern Ireland to test policies before implementing them in England could fuel Irish nationalism.”
“Rather than imposing a policy that is not being applied anywhere else in the Union, we should limit the changes to only those that are legally required, or repeal Section 9 altogether.”
Hayes concluded that “To re-empathise the Government’s commitment to the devolution settlement – the bedrock of the peace agreement in Northern Ireland – the Northern Ireland Office must repeal section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act, or – at the very least – not go beyond what is legally required while abortion is fully devolved to Northern Ireland and the new Assembly’s authority is honoured.”
And Rep. Chris Smith wrote to Brandon Lewis, Secretary of State of Northern Ireland, that “imposing a liberal abortion regime upon Northern Ireland shows a contempt for the Good Friday Agreement’s devolution provisions, and weakens the entire agreement, which is the framework for the fragile peace that Northern Ireland has known.”
Smith’s letter, in which he was joined by Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.), was reported in the Belfast Telegraph March 16.
The US Representatives wrote that “imposition of Section 9 — which provides for a far more liberal abortion regime than currently exists in the other constituent parts of the United Kingdom … runs counter to the fundamental democratic principles of self-governance and self-determination.”
They encouraged Lewis to “let Northern Ireland work this issue out through its own representative Assembly”.
“Abortion on demand is not the will of the people in Northern Ireland, and if it were, Northern Ireland has a duly constituted Assembly by which it can balance equities and legislate on the matter,” Smith wrote.
In January, a newly-elected MP for a Northern Irish constituency also urged that section 9 be repealed.
“I want today to make the point to this House, on behalf of the many thousands of people across Northern Ireland who take a pro-life stance, that we want to repeal section 9 with immediate effect and allow for the Northern Ireland Assembly to debate, discuss and evidence-gather on this emotive issue,” Carla Lockhart said Jan. 8 in the House of Commons in Westminster.
Lockhart, a member of the Democratic Unionist Party, was elected MP for Upper Bann in the 2019 UK general election.
“It is imperative that I speak on this to attempt again to highlight the anger, disappointment and frustration concerning the change in abortion laws that have been foisted upon the people of Northern Ireland,” Lockhart stated. “These changes came in the most roughshod way, with complete contempt for the devolved Administration and the views of the people of Northern Ireland.”
Lockhart stated: “I want a society in Northern Ireland that values life, and I want to see services that will help women choose life … help us create a culture of choosing life.” She asked for government provision of a perinatal palliative care center, a maternal mental health unit, and better childcare services.
Lockhart responded to the proposed framework saying that “it is incomprehensible that the Government, knowing that abortion was a devolved matter, has published consultation proposals to introduce changes which go far beyond what has actually been required by Parliament.”
The amendment to the NI EF Act obliging the government to provide for legal abortion in Northern Ireland was introduced by Stella Creasy, a Labour MP who represents a London constituency.
In October 2019, the High Court in Belfast had ruled that the region’s ban on the abortion of unborn children with fatal abnormalities violated the UK’s human rights commitments.
Northern Irish women have been able to procure free National Health Service abortions in England, Scotland, and Wales since November 2017.
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What is there to celebrate about 500 years of heresy?
I’m fairly sure the Protestants involved don’t view it as heresy. Not defending it; just pointing out the obvious.
I’m fairly sure many of the Catholics involved don’t either!
Good for them – more power to them.
A Lutheran Chief of Chaplain Service once told me we Catholics are obsessed with the Law. It seems a hangover from Luther’s insistence that faith alone saves. I responded our laws focus on charity. He in his own way was a charitable person. He responded he thought of becoming Catholic. Despite the inane comment by Steven Fuit, president of the UPCB that “our unity essentially derives from respecting differences” our unity derives from faith in Christ and following His commandments, even if the latter is tacitly admitted by the practice of many Lutherans.
MORTALIUM ANIMOS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI
ON RELIGIOUS UNITY
TO OUR VENERABLE BRETHREN THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES,
ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS, AND OTHER LOCAL ORDINARIES
IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE.
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI
ON RELIGIOUS UNITY
6. We were created by God, the Creator of the universe, in order that we might know Him and serve Him; our Author therefore has a perfect right to our service. God might, indeed, have prescribed for man’s government only the natural law, which, in His creation, He imprinted on his soul, and have regulated the progress of that same law by His ordinary providence; but He preferred rather to impose precepts, which we were to obey, and in the course of time, namely from the beginnings of the human race until the coming and preaching of Jesus Christ, He Himself taught man the duties which a rational creature owes to its Creator: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, in these days, hath spoken to us by his Son.”[3] From which it follows that there can be no true religion other than that which is founded on the revealed word of God: which revelation, begun from the beginning and continued under the Old Law, Christ Jesus Himself under the New Law perfected. Now, if God has spoken (and it is historically certain that He has truly spoken), all must see that it is man’s duty to believe absolutely God’s revelation and to obey implicitly His commands; that we might rightly do both, for the glory of God and our own salvation, the Only-begotten Son of God founded His Church on earth. Further, We believe that those who call themselves Christians can do no other than believe that a Church, and that Church one, was established by Christ; but if it is further inquired of what nature according to the will of its Author it must be, then all do not agree. A good number of them, for example, deny that the Church of Christ must be visible and apparent, at least to such a degree that it appears as one body of faithful, agreeing in one and the same doctrine under one teaching authority and government; but, on the contrary, they understand a visible Church as nothing else than a Federation, composed of various communities of Christians, even though they adhere to different doctrines, which may even be incompatible one with another. Instead, Christ our Lord instituted His Church as a perfect society, external of its nature and perceptible to the senses, which should carry on in the future the work of the salvation of the human race, under the leadership of one head,[4] with an authority teaching by word of mouth,[5] and by the ministry of the sacraments, the founts of heavenly grace;[6] for which reason He attested by comparison the similarity of the Church to a kingdom,[7] to a house,[8] to a sheepfold,[9] and to a flock.[10] This Church, after being so wonderfully instituted, could not, on the removal by death of its Founder and of the Apostles who were the pioneers in propagating it, be entirely extinguished and cease to be, for to it was given the commandment to lead all men, without distinction of time or place, to eternal salvation: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations.”[11] In the continual carrying out of this task, will any element of strength and efficiency be wanting to the Church, when Christ Himself is perpetually present to it, according to His solemn promise: “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world?”[12] It follows then that the Church of Christ not only exists to-day and always, but is also exactly the same as it was in the time of the Apostles, unless we were to say, which God forbid, either that Christ our Lord could not effect His purpose, or that He erred when He asserted that the gates of hell should never prevail against it.[13]
As a 73-year-old Catholic, I find it disrespectful of those young Catholics to disrupt the event. Yes, I know the Protestants were in a very Catholic Cathedral, but it is a very large space, and the recitation of the rosary was done with the intent to preclude the continuation the Protestant celebration. Now one can question why Protestants were celebrating the 5000th anniversary of the Reformation in a Catholic Cathedral, but that doesn’t address the question of why these Catholic youngsters found it necessary to be disruptive to the point that police were called.