A DUP Assembly member has presented the Stormont speaker Robin Newton with what he said was the largest petition ever brought before the Northern Assembly, as Northern Executive Ministers grapple with whether to permit abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality.
South Down DUP MLA Jim Wells said his 300,000-signature petition opposing changes to abortion legislation in Northern Ireland reflected the majority opinion of people in the North.
Last week, a 45,000-signature petition seeking changes to abortion legislation in the North was handed to the speaker by Greens MLA Clare Bailey.
The petition was carried out with the support of Amnesty International.
In the Assembly chamber on Monday, Mr Wells said the Amnesty petition was “done online, and there was no check whatsoever on where the people who signed it live; many may, indeed, be from outside Northern Ireland”.
He said the 300,000 signatures on the anti-abortion petition were verifiably of people from Northern Ireland who opposed any moves to extend the British Abortion Act, 1967, to Northern Ireland.
Mr Wells said that, since the 1967 act, “eight million unborn children had been aborted in the rest of the UK.
“I am absolutely convinced the people of Northern Ireland do not want that law to extend to this part of the UK,” he said.
Abortion is legal in Northern Ireland where there is a threat to the life of the mother or where there is a risk of a serious and adverse effect on her physical or mental health, which is either long-term or permanent, if the pregnancy continues.
A number of Ministers in the Northern Executive are currently considering a report from an expert panel on whether to permit abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality.
Report
In the Assembly on Monday afternoon, the Sinn Féin Minister for Health Michelle O’Neill said she and Independent Minister for Justice Claire Sugden received the report in October.
“The First Minister and Deputy First Minister have now seen the report, and the Justice Minister and I will continue to work closely on the matter.
“We hope to bring forward proposals early in the new year,” she said.
While there is no official confirmation of the report’s findings, there is speculation that the group recommended that abortion be permissible in cases of fatal foetal abnormality.
After the British-Irish Council meeting in Cardiff on Friday, Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said he believed cases where there is no prospect of a foetus living outside of the womb were “challenging situations which need to be addressed”.
Also speaking in Cardiff, DUP First Minister Arlene Fostersaid she recognised that “in a very small number of cases there are heartbreaking issues that have to be dealt with” and that the Northern Executive needed to make appropriate provision for those matters.
However, she said there was “no point making bad law to deal with one or two circumstances” and that all of the implications of changes to legislation would have to be considered.
Any changes to abortion legislation would need the support of both the DUP and Sinn Féin.
Adrianne Peltz, of Amnesty Northern Ireland, said she welcomed the unconfirmed reports that the panel had recommended legislative change to allow for abortions in cases of fatal foetal abnormality.
However, she said that “we need legislators of all parties to recognise that Northern Ireland law requires more fundamental change if it is to meet internationally-recognised human rights standards”.
