Pro-life group criticises UN committee for calling for liberal abortion law in Northern Ireland Belfast, Wednesday, - The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has criticised the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for calling for Britain's liberal abortion law to be extended to Northern Ireland.

Liam Gibson of SPUC Northern Ireland said: "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights upholds the inherent dignity and equal rights of all members of the human family, including children before birth. It is disturbing, therefore, to see how far the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has departed from the UN's founding principles. "Abortion not only denies the fundamental human rights of children but it is deeply damaging to women. It is clear that the committee has no real concern for either women or children and knows nothing about Northern Ireland. If it did, then it would know that there is no evidence of so-called backstreet abortion in Northern Ireland and that in fact we have the best maternal mortality record in the UK. "UN committees must be told to stop promoting abortion. It is time for pro-life politicians everywhere to call on the UN to return to its founding principles and protect the human rights of all members of the human family from the first moments of life until its natural end." At a meeting in Geneva two weeks ago, the UN committee said in its report : "The Committee calls upon the State party to amend the abortion law of Northern Ireland to bring it in line with the 1967 Abortion Act with a view to preventing clandestine and unsafe abortions in cases of rape, incest or foetal abnormality."