By Gudrun Schultz
STORMONT, Northern Ireland, March 1, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Catholic and Protestant election candidates joined together March 1 in supporting an initiative to make abortion a key election issue, led by Northern Ireland’s leading pro-life group Precious Life. The effort was undertaken to counter guidelines on abortion issued by the Department of Health in January, which pro-life leaders have identified as nothing more than an attempt to introduce abortion on demand.
“These guidelines state that each Health Trust must ensure that their patients have access to abortion. This means all hospitals will be required to carry out abortions. It could even mean the Department facilitating the opening of abortion clinics. This will effectively bring abortion-on-demand into Northern Ireland through the back door,” Precious Life Director Bernie Smyth said in a statement to the press.
Candidate Mary Muldoon, SDLP, and Jeffery Donaldson and Iris Robinson, both with the DUP, participated in the opening of a billboard campaign to raise public awareness of the dangers in the health department’s guidelines.
“I’m greatly encouraged by this display of cross-party support,” Smyth said. “It shows that, after more than 30 years, opposition to abortion is still one of the few issues that unite the Unionist and Nationalist parties. I have also received letters and telephone calls from many other candidates who, if elected, have pledged to call on the Department of Health to change their guidelines.”
The draft guidelines were issued as the result of a lawsuit filed by the pro-abortion Family Planning Association in 2004.
The health department’s abortion proposal triggered such a volume of interest and debate that the deadline for comments was extended to 20 April 2007, from the original cutoff of 20 Feb. 2007. Precious Life has seized on the extended time period as an opportunity to encourage concerned voters to contact the department.
“We are distributing tens of thousands of leaflets warning of the dangers contained in the guidelines, together with a Submission Form for the public to sign asking the Department of Health to change their guidelines and give protection to our unborn children and their mothers,” Smyth said. “This campaign will send out a clear message to the Department that if they attempt to introduce abortion here, our politicians and the people of Northern Ireland say ‘NOT IN MY NAME’.”
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
Critics Condemn UK Proposal to Legalize Northern Ireland Brothels
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/nov/06112401.html
Northern Ireland Assembly Fails to Stop UK Homosexual Law, Christian Group Files Suit
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/dec/06121506.html