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OVER 150 POLITICIANS from the UK and Ireland have signed a letter calling on the UK and Irish governments to liberalise abortion laws in Northern Ireland.
Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald and vice-president Michelle O’Neill are among the 170 signatories to the letter, which is addressed to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and British Prime Minister Theresa May.
Currently, it’s illegal for a woman in the North to get an abortion unless there’s a risk to her life or a serious risk to her mental health. This differs from the rest of the UK where abortion without restriction is allowed up to 24 weeks.
After a landslide vote in favour of repealing the Eighth Amendment from the Irish Constitution – which restricted Ireland’s abortion laws by stating that the right to life of the unborn was equal to the right to life of the mother – attention has immediately turned to similar laws in Northern Ireland.
According to the Guardian 342 women and girls from the North went to England for a termination through the British Pregnancy Advisory Service since March.
The letter, published in the Sunday Times today, states that the Good Friday Agreement places a responsibility on the co-guarantors to “uphold and protect the human rights of all the residents of Northern Ireland”.
“This responsibility cannot be abandoned for political expediency; and if falls to each of us to help ensure that these commitments are proactively upheld.”
The Stormont Assembly has been left without a government since Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness withdrew his party’s support from the Executive last year over the cash-for-ash scandal, demanding that DUP leader Arlene Foster step aside as First Minister (which she repeatedly refused to do).
Despite numerous marathon talks, there’s still a stalemate between the two main parties the DUP and Sinn Féin. This has left civil servants making government decisions, and Westminster passing a budget for the region to keep essential services going.
The DUP is a pro-Brexit, pro-life party that opposes gay marriage. Despite many of those issues being contentious, they remain in a significantly powerful as they’re currently propping up Theresa May’s minority Conservative government.
Speculation continues over whether May would risk making a move – such as liberalising the North’s abortion laws – that would jeopardise her position, particularly at such a crucial time in Brexit negotiations.
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This has absolutely nothing to do with us or Leo
@Crocodylus Pontifex: actually, through the Good Friday Agreement, it has a helluva lot to do with us and Leo in a multi-faceted and complex way. Not least of all by virtue if the fact that many Northern Irish citizens are also citizens of Ireland and all of them have the right to be recognised as such. Furthermore, with no sitting government, our government along with Westminster have a huge role to play.
@Conor Paddington: As part of said agreement we gave up our constitutional claim on NI.
@Boyne Sharky: AS part of said agreement we are co-guarantors of the GFA. This places a responsibility on both governments to see that the GFA is implemented properly. Now if only someone would tell Covenant and Leo that they could get the British and Irish governments to rule NI in a joint administration in the absence of an Assembly but FG won’t want to do that they would upset their Unionist and Tory allies.
@Boyne Starkey: @Ennui Kenny is correct in his initial rebuttal and that’s what’s relevant here. What you are saying is not relevant, but in response we gave up our constitutional claim in exchange for a commitment from all parties that if at any point in the future a majority of citizens in Northern Ireland want to form a United Ireland it would not be obstructed.
@Conor Paddington: The Good Friday Agreement primarily focused on the sovereignty of Northern Ireland, it agreed that the majority of the people wished to remain part of the UK, however a substantial number and the majority of the people of the island of Ireland wished for a united Ireland. It left the future sovereignty of Northern Ireland open to speculation.
As Part of Strand 2 (there are 3) three new Institutions were created between the UK and Irish governments;
North/South Ministerial Council
North/South Inter-Parliamentary Association
North/South Consultative Forum
The North/South Ministerial Council has responsibility for mutual areas of co-operation including Agriculture, Education, Environment, Tourism, Transport and Health.
It’s Health remit includes “Accident and emergency planning, co-operation on high-technology equipment, cancer research and health promotion.”
For example, since 2014 the paediatric heart surgery centre for the island of Ireland is at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin, this may fall under the area of emergency planning or high-technology. However it’s difficult to see exactly how any of these areas could encompass ‘abortion services’.
@Boyne Sharky: listen, thanks for the input, but you’ve now gone fully off topic…
@Conor Paddington: Oh you’re a mod, well why didn’t you just say?
@Boyne Sharky: and you must be a rocker. Let’s riot. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mods_and_rockers
@Conor Paddington: Ulster says NO, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER.
Just as NI and UK politicians and people had no right to interfere in our laws and referendum, we have no right to interfere in theirs. They have every right to tell those people where to go.
Depriving an unborn child of their most basic right to life is a breach of their human rights.
@Tom Mullally: But who cares about human rights? Convenience matters more.
@Tom Mullally: Depriving women of bodily autonomy is a breach of their basic human rights.
@Tom Mullally: No right to life via someone else’s body.
If The North wants to be equal to England in all things then why not in pro choice legislation?
@Micheal S. O’ Ceilleachair: The DUP wants to be seen as British, the only problem is that they want to be British in a different century to the rest of the planet.
@Micheal S. O’ Ceilleachair: where did you get the idea that NI wants to be equal to England from? In every situation NI wants to be a special case, and often to have huge, extra sums of money £ spent on it…
The sooner the better. Women facing a crisis pregnancy on our small island should not have their options limited by what part of said island they are on….
When Mickey Harte made his contribution to the debate in the run up to the referendum there were many telling him to butt out because he was a foreigner.
I guess the rules have changed since, or perhaps hypocrisy just runs in the blood of the progressives.
@Garry Coll: Who called him a foreigner?
@Leadóg: There were quite a few pro-Unionist, anti-republican West Brit commentators who smugly made that remark on here. You probably know them already as they regularly like to come on here and disenfranchise the half of the population of N Ireland that identifies as Irish.
The same strange looking weirdos with the same crappy signs.
Nothing to do with Dublin or London. How would people have reacted if the DUP had got involved in the referendum here?
No chance until the balance of power changes in Westminster
Or the NI electorate vote for pro-choice representatives who sort it out in Stormont, on their own terms, with nothing imposed from outside, like grown-ups?
@W Kevin Doyle: Not going to happen anytime soon.
@W Kevin Doyle:
Even less chance of that.
Fresh from their victory in the recent referendum the blood thirsty savages have the unborn of the north in their sight…relentless unmerciful odious …
@Joe O’riordan: this made me chuckle.
@Joe O’riordan: Hehehe!
Beidh ginmhilleadh acu roimh cead do dhaoine aeracha pósadh
Hi; in regard to the letter to the Sunday Times about liberalizing abortion laws in Northern Ireland, surely the unborn children must be regarded as “residents of Northern Ireland” and so, under the Good Friday agreement their human rights have to be protected rather than diminished.
Thank you.
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