Philip Lynn, blogpost
On 22nd October 2019, unborn children in Northern Ireland were forcibly stripped, by the parliament in Westminster, of all protection under the law.
Section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act received Royal Assent on the 24th July 2019, which repealed section 58 & 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (decriminalising abortion), and placed an obligation on the Secretary of State (SoS) for Northern Ireland to enact abortion regulations by 31st March 2020.
The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) carried out a public consultation which ended on 16th December. In his introduction to the consultation document the SoS made it clear that he was not interested in the ethics of abortion, nor the question about whether he “should be exercising his duty in the first place”. Despite this, 79% of respondents indicated that they wanted no change to Northern Ireland’s pro-life laws.
Nevertheless, the NIO proceeded to make their abortion regulations; despite the opposition of the vast majority. These regulations were placed before Westminster on the 13th May and came into force on the 14th. Amongst the provisions made are abortion on demand up to 12 weeks gestation (no reason needed), effective abortion on demand up to 24 weeks, and abortion up to birth in cases of perceived disability.
Hidden within the body of the text is the effective repeal of section 25 of the 1945 Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Act. In conjunction with the repeal of the Offences Against the Person Act, this means that there is absolutely no legislation to protect unborn children currently ‘on the books’. As such, there is no legal consequence for a woman who kills her child at any stage of pregnancy; from conception to delivery. Abortion is completely decriminalised in Northern Ireland.
The current changes to Northern Ireland’s abortion laws, and the accompanying regulations, represent perhaps the single greatest test for Northern Ireland’s pro-life movement. Broadly speaking, two different approaches are emerging. We can expect a general realignment within the pro-life movement along this axis: “repeal” or “reform”.
At present, it’s not clear where many individuals or organisations will fall on this axis. However, this will no doubt become increasingly apparent as the regulations increasingly come into effect.
The emerging “reform” narrative holds that Western Europe’s most radical abortion regime is Northern Ireland’s new reality. This narrative emphasises efforts to “shape” the abortion regulations, to “limit” or “restrict” the number killed, and to “save as many lives as possible”.
Such efforts are doomed to failure. The 1967 Abortion Act in England and Wales is nominally more restrictive than Northern Ireland’s new legislation. Despite this, over 200,000 abortions took place in the UK in 2018. Efforts to tinker with the regulations will not fundamentally alter the grim legal reality, but may very well impede efforts to stop the practice of legally-sanctioned abortion entirely.
To repeat: any changes to the regulations will have no impact because all legislation upon which an unregulated abortion could be prosecuted has been forcibly removed.
In contrast, the “repeal” narrative has begun to emerge after a failed effort to enact the Defence of the Unborn Child Bill on October 21st 2019. This legislation, had it passed, would have effectively reversed, or repealed, the abortion provisions in Section 9 of the offending legislation. The repeal message argues that the primary objective of the pro-life movement is to secure the full right to life of every man, woman, and child from conception to natural death; protected and guaranteed by law.
The line taken by the pro-life movement now will be a benchmark for the policies set by Northern Ireland’s political parties in the future. A compromise, or “reformist” stance will merely result in weak policies, and supply the abortion industry with a degree of legitimacy it does not currently have in Northern Ireland. Reformist policies will allow abortion to become Northern Ireland’s “new normal”.
However, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children are unambiguous and clear: we are abortion abolitionists. The killing of any child, for any reason, can never be justified. We will not lend our support to reformist efforts to “improve” regulations which are specifically designed to enable the killing of children in their mother’s womb.
Instead, our task is to campaign for a society and political culture wherein legislation such as the Defence of the Unborn Child Act can be successfully passed. SPUC will not only work with anyone who shares our abolitionist stance, but we will be at the forefront: shaping and leading the development of the “pro-repeal” movement towards the only just conclusion: repeal of Section 9, and an absolute and conclusive end to abortion and the culture of death.