April 8, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — A leading Northern Ireland politician has called for the region to adopt new UK regulations allowing women to kill their preborn children at home by using both stages of the chemical abortion process during the coronavirus outbreak.
Michelle O'Neill, Deputy First Minister and vice president of Sinn Féin, said earlier this week, “I support telemedicine. What we’re talking about is compassionate health care, modern health care for women.”
“What we’re talking about is responding to women’s need at the time of global crisis – women shouldn’t be left out in terms of supports that are put in place. And so the regulations that went through Westminster, the legislation that has gone through, needs to be implemented here.”
The new temporary coronavirus regulations issued by the UK government in Westminster allow for women in England up to 10 weeks of pregnancy to take both stages of the abortion pill procedure at home, after a telephone or e-consultation with a doctor, without ever actually seeing him or her in person. The UK government says the new regulations are time-limited for two years, or until the coronavirus crisis is over.
Despite being a part of the UK, Northern Ireland’s local government has the authority to decide whether or not to introduce the new regulations into the region.
Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland’s First Minister and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), has said, “I don't think it's any secret that I don't believe abortion on demand should be available in Northern Ireland.”
“I think it’s a very retrograde step for our society here in Northern Ireland. Instead of supporting people who find themselves in crisis pregnancies, we’re not even having any discussion around that and how we can support people in those circumstances, how we can provide perinatal care,” she added.
The abortion pill – “medication abortion” or “chemical abortion” – is actually two pills, one to deprive a developing preborn baby of the nutrition he needs and then one to induce contractions. The first pill is mifepristone, the second misoprostol. Chemical abortions are used on babies younger than nine or 10 weeks old.
Liam Gibson, Northern Ireland political officer for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), told LifeSiteNews that “the leadership of Sinn Féin has an almost religious fervour that leads them to demand greater and greater access to abortion.”
“This means that whenever Michelle O’Neill speaks about the subject she is simply parroting the talking points of the abortion industry. Abortion is not health care and for Mrs. O’Neill to describe an act of lethal violence directed at an innocent child as compassionate is simply grotesque,” Gibson said.
“Catholic and nationalist voters, and indeed all voters, need to realise that by supporting lawmakers who promote the evil of abortion, they are making themselves personally complicit in the killing of innocent unborn children.”
New abortion legislation came into force in Northern Ireland on March 31, after it was passed last year by politicians in Westminster, England, while Northern Ireland’s local government was not functioning.
The Northern Ireland Assembly, which for years resisted pressure from Westminster politicians and the abortion lobby, collapsed in 2016 when Sinn Féin pulled out of government. The party then set as conditions for its return the introduction of abortion and same-sex “marriage” — both of which came into force last month.
But a provision for abortion is still limited in Northern Ireland and women are being allowed by the British government to travel to the rest of the UK to procure abortions during the coronavirus outbreak.
“That Sinn Féin has ceased to be a genuinely Irish political party is made clear every time they demand the implementation of extreme abortion legislation emanating from London,” Gibson said.
“The abortion law in Northern Ireland is now so extreme that disabled children can be aborted right up to birth and a woman who kills her child during delivery would not commit a criminal offence. This is not compassionate, this is diabolical. That is what Mrs. O’Neill’s party stands for.”