The DUP has said Northern Ireland will not be “bullied or bounced” into changing its abortion laws after feminist activists openly flouted the law by swallowing abortion pills in a public protest outside Laganside courts in Belfast on Thursday.
Even though Northern Ireland is set to be the only part of the UK or Ireland to not have liberal abortion laws, South Down MLA Jim Wells said it was “entirely our right under the devolution settlement to make our own decisions on that”.
“The Assembly discussed this in detail on February 10th, 2016 and after a lengthy debate decided we did not need to change the laws in Northern Ireland and that is where we stand. And we are not going to be bullied or bounced into changing our laws because of what happened in the Irish Republic,” he said.
Channel Four have aired a documentary on women who decide to get pregnant by artificial insemination, using sperm donated free of charge by strangers who offer their services via the internet. One such man, a 61-year-old from Yorkshire, claimed to be a retired teacher. He advertised himself on Facebook, and was happy to drive up to 80 miles to park outside a woman’s house, hand over a syringeful of fresh sperm, before heading home. He asked for no payment, except a text to announce each pregnancy and a photo of each baby. Most of the women who called on Clive’s services were in same-sex relationships.
Junior Minister John Halligan will put euthanasia firmly on the political agenda by submitting a bill to the Dáil in the next few weeks that would legalise assisted-suicide. This is only days after the vote to repeal the pro-life amendment from the Irish Constitution.
According to the Irish Independent, the proposed laws would require a person to be terminally ill, have a “clear and settled intention to end his or her own life” and be over 18. ‘Safeguards’ would require a person to make a declaration in the presence of a witness who is not a beneficiary of the ill person’s estate. It would have to be countersigned by the medical practitioner from whom the person has requested assistance to end their life. A 14-day ‘pause period’ would be legally enforced between the time a person signs the declaration and doctors actually prescribing the necessary medicines.
A bill preventing Catholic schools admitting Catholic children first was passed by the Dáil yesterday. Minority denominations and religions will continue to be allowed to operate faith-based admissions policies.
Catholic school bodies have argued that banning religion as a selection criterion in admissions would breach their constitutional rights relating to religious freedom and freedom of association and have indicated they might fight the legislation in the courts.
Minister for Education Richard Bruton said however that the provision was robust and would mean baptism as a preferment for entry to Catholic schools in the event of oversubscription would be removed. Mr Bruton told the Dáil after the Bill was passed: “Ireland is changing and we need to change with it. The expectation of citizens around the education system have changed and I think this Bill will go some distance to ensuring that we keep up with those changes.
Fianna Fáil education spokesman Thomas Byrne welcomed the passage of the Bill which he described as “in some ways radical legislation” but said in other way it will not affect many schools in terms of how they operate.
The legislation now goes to the Seanad.
Portuguese lawmakers have rejected a proposal to legalise euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide.
Drafted by the ruling Socialists, the bill garnered 110 votes in the 230-seat parliament but was voted down by 115 opponents, with 4 abstentions, after a heated debate and a vote that required each lawmaker to declare his or her stance.
The Portuguese Doctors’ Association opposed the change, saying it violated key principles of the medical profession.
The outcome of Portugal’s vote was expected to be close as the two main parties, the Socialists and the main opposition Social Democratic Party, allowed their lawmakers to vote according to their conscience. The two parties have 175 of the 230 members of the Republican Assembly, Portugal’s parliament. Another of the government’s hard left allies, the Communists, voted against the legislation, joining the conservative CDS-PP on the other end of the political spectrum.
Inciting or assisting euthanasia is currently punishable by up to three years in prison.
Health Minister Simon Harris has issued a threat to doctors who refuse to refer patients for abortions under the proposed legislative regime. On Monday, GPs with the Medical Alliance for Life had asked the Minister that they might not be prosecuted for refusing to do referrals. However, speaking on Claire Byrne Live Monday night, Harris said he didn’t expect any substantial changes between the already-published outline of the bill and the final legislation.
“I think these have been the most discussed heads of bill of perhaps any legislation ever. I took a conscious decision, along with the rest of the government, to publish the heads of bill before the referendum because people rightly wanted to know, if I voted Yes, what will the law look like?”
People cast their ballots in the full knowledge that this would be the legislation, he said.
Doctors who refused to administer abortions to their patients would be allowed to conscientiously object, Harris said, but added that those GPs would have to refer patients to a doctor who would. “The law of the land will be very clear on that,” Harris said. “Medical Council guidelines already deal with issues of conscientious objection and I expect the Medical Council will deal with that.”
British Prime Minister, Theresa May, has ruled out any legislative diktat from Westminster that would impose a liberal abortion law on the North. She spoke as hundreds of pro-choice activists vowed to hit Northern Ireland like a “seismic wave” as they stepped up their bid for change with a rally in Belfast on Monday. Theresa May’s official spokesman said on Monday that abortion was a devolved matter on which politicians at Westminster should not legislate. “It is important to recognise that the people of Northern Ireland are entitled to their own process which is run by elected politicians. Our focus is restoring a democratically accountable devolved government in Northern Ireland so that locally accountable politicians can make decisions on behalf of the public they represent,” the spokesman said.
A Labour party senator has issued a call for the Citizens’ Assembly to be resurrected to deal with the ongoing involvement of the Catholic Church in the running of schools in Ireland. In a message posted on facebook, Labour senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin said the next constitutional issue for the country to face is to “break the religious stranglehold over Irish education”. In follow-up comments to media he said: “We have 4,000 schools in the State and there are ongoing issues such as access, employment rights for non-religious teachers, school ethos, sex education and so on. The Citizens’ Assembly could deal with these issues together rather than tinkering with existing laws. This could well be a five- to 10-year process, but it’s a model that has proved to be successful in dealing with marriage equality and abortion.”
His remarks were echoed by the Labour leader, Brendan Howlin, who told the Dail that the school patronage issue was “significant for many right now who want choice in the education they provide for their children. The Citizens’ Assembly model would be a very good way to have that debate and to allow all sides to have an input and be tested in an open way.”
In response, the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said “it is certainly something the Minister for Education and I will consider”. He added that the Cabinet had discussed asking a new assembly to look at the wider issues of gender equality and “to come up with a set of proposals to allow us to follow through in many ways on the result of the referendum and deliver equality between men and women in other areas”. Mr Varadkar said there was work to be done on “the gender pay gap, greater equality in pensions and having far higher participation of women on company boards.
The Archbishop of Armagh, Eamon Martin, has expressed his dismay that the country appears “to have obliterated the right to life of all unborn children from our constitution and that this country is now on the brink of legislating for a liberal abortion regime.”
Speaking in Knock on Sunday, he said he was very concerned about the implications for society of interfering with the fundamental principle that the value of all human life is equal and that all human beings, born and unborn, have inherent worth and dignity. “At a time when scientific and medical evidence is clearer than ever about the beginning of life, we have effectively decided that some human lives – in this case the lives of the unborn – are less significant and deserving of protection than others. We have elevated the right to personal choice above the fundamental right to life itself.”
He added that faithful Catholics could become despondent, but “it remains as important as ever to affirm the sanctity of all human life”, and that the “taking of the life of any innocent human being is always gravely wrong”.
Amnesty International has called on the British government to introduce a liberal abortion regime to Northern Ireland after the Republic voted to remove the right to life of the unborn to pave the way for a radical abortion law. Amnesty’s campaign manager in the North, Grainne Teggart, was speaking on Saturday morning as the vote was still being counted in the repeal referendum. She said the British government can “no longer turn a blind eye and deny us equality”.
“We cannot be left behind in a corner of the UK and on the island of Ireland as second-class citizens,” she said.
“It must not be forgotten that us women in Northern Ireland are still persecuted by a Victorian-era abortion ban. It’s hypocritical, degrading and insulting to Northern Irish women that we are forced to travel for vital healthcare services but cannot access them at home.”
Separately, the London-Irish Abortion Rights Campaign have said they will immediately transfer their focus to changing the law in Northern Ireland in an attempt to continue the momentum achieved during the vote to repeal the Eighth Amendment. They said the decisive Yes vote meant there is a strong mandate to continue campaigning for change north of the Border.
Sinn Féin’s leader Mary Lou McDonald said she wanted urgent action to make abortion more widely available in the North, but that change should not be imposed by Westminster.
“I think it would be a scandal if a woman in Dundalk was to have rights and access to services a woman in Newry was denied,” she said, but the change should be made by Stormont, not by London.
