PLOTS ARE AFOOT TO bring abortion to Northern Ireland, the only part of the UK where the unborn child cannot legally be killed.
The Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Owen Smith, and Belfast Labour MPs have met with Amnesty International and the Family Planning Association to decide how to overturn the province’s abortion laws.
The meeting followed several failed attempts to pressure the Northern Ireland Assembly to liberalise the laws.
According to CARE (Christian Action Research & Education), Amnesty had submitted a petition to the Assembly which had not been checked for signatories from outside Northern Ireland, and which could have been signed more than once and under different names.
Labour has already pushed the UK government into funding abortions in England for Northern Irish women, which critics say has undermined Northern Irish democracy.
CARE Chief Executive Nola Leach criticised Labour’s “complete disregard for the devolution settlement in place in Northern Ireland.”
It is estimated that 100,000 people are alive today because the 1967 Abortion Act has not yet been extended to the province.