Northern Ireland’s Catholic Bishops have called on legislators to protect unborn children as they prepare to vote on allowing abortion in the region under certain circumstances.

Ahead of a vote on an amendment to the Northern Ireland Justice Bill which would allow terminations based on a diagnosis of a life-limiting condition in a foetus, the Bishops appealed to Members of the Assembly “to defend the dignity, humanity and right to life of unborn children with life-limiting conditions and to ensure mothers facing such traumatic situations in pregnancy receive the best possible support and care that a life-affirming society can provide”.

Warning Members of the Assembly not to assume that every diagnosis of a foetal abnormality was automatically fatal, the Bishops said: “Such life-limiting conditions in pregnancy, including anencephaly, are sometimes inaccurately described as ‘fatal’ or ‘lethal’ abnormalities, implying that death has effectively occurred already or that a time of death can be predicted with certainty. This is totally misleading. The reality is that every case is different. Some seriously ill babies will die before birth and others will live for a few hours, others for weeks or months while some will live for significantly longer. This is an acknowledged medical fact. No doctor can tell for certain how long any baby in these circumstances will live.

“We ask Members of the Assembly, in the interests of a truly compassionate and caring society, in which the most vulnerable are protected equally and with the same dignity as others, to reject the proposed abortion amendment and to work instead for the right of parents to peri-natal hospice services to support them in caring for their terminally ill child until natural death.”