Bishops fear wider access to abortion will devalue life

Northern Ireland’s pro-life groups have urged the Attorney General to appeal this week’s High Court ruling that the abortion laws there breach human rights under the European Convention.

The action was taken against the Department of Justice by Northern Ireland’s Human Rights Commission which argued that terminations should be permitted in cases of fatal foetal abnormalities, rape and incest. The Attorney General, John Larkin, has expressed his disappointment with the outcome and is studying the grounds for an appeal.

Northern Ireland has more restrictive abortion laws than the rest of the United Kingdom, and abortion is only permitted where the life or mental health of the mother is in danger. The same applies in the Irish Republic.

In his ruling issued on Monday, Mr Justice Mark Horner said that a mother’s inability to access an abortion in the case of fatal foetal abnormality was a “gross interference with her personal autonomy” as there was “no life to protect”. He said when the baby leaves the womb, it cannot survive independently and is “doomed”. His comments were described by Northern Ireland’s bishops as “profoundly disquieting”. “Having met with many parents whose unborn child with a life-limiting condition has lived for hours, days, weeks and even years bringing immense happiness, we are profoundly shocked and disturbed at the judge’s words that such children are ‘doomed’,” the bishops said. “By any human and moral standard these children are persons and our duty to respect and protect their right to life does not change because of any court judgment,” the bishops added.

Speaking to RTE Radio’s News at One programme, Bishop John McAreavey of Dromore said that once you concede the principle that some lives are not worthy of protection, then “every life in that society is under question”. He warned that there is “a very strong campaign in both parts of Ireland to bring in abortion to a greater or lesser degree”.

Tracy Harkin, leading spokes­person of a support group for children with life-limiting disabilities, Every Life Counts, told The Tablet that the judge’s remarks were “chilling”. “What distresses us as mothers and fathers is that children like ours are being used by mainstream abortion campaigners to change the law,” said Mrs Harkin, whose daughter Kathleen Rose has Trisomy 13, and has defied the odds to reach her ninth birthday. Currently 90 per cent of parents of the 700 children diagnosed with a life-limiting disability in all of Ireland choose not to travel abroad for an abortion.