David Quinn
With all eyes on the threat of Covid-19, an even greater killer is given more access, writes David Quinn
At a time when we are trying desperately to save lives, to the extent of effectively shutting us all in our houses, both parts of this island have just made it easier to deliberately kill the very youngest among us, namely the unborn.
In the South, we have ordained that women can now obtain the abortion pill without having to physically see a doctor. In the North, they have just commenced a new abortion regime of truly hideous proportions, even worse than the one in the rest of the UK. It is one of the most radical in the entire world.
The new measure in the South was introduced as part of the emergency legislation recently passed by the Oireachtas in response to the present health crisis.
Under the abortion law passed in December 2018, following the referendum in May of that year, a woman seeking to obtain the abortion pill first had to physically visit a doctor. His or her job was not to consider the life of the child in the womb – in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy that now counts for absolutely nothing – but only to consider whether the woman might have some underlying health condition that could make it risky for her to take the abortion pill.
The question is whether it will go back to the original law, requiring a physical visit to a GP when this emergency is over”
Remember, in almost every case, the woman takes the pill at home and has what amounts to a deliberate miscarriage possibly involving much bleeding.
Patients who don’t have coronavirus (or its symptoms) even in the present pandemic are still permitted to go to their GPs. They might be very sick, or else have a blood pressure or diabetic condition that needs regular monitoring. They don’t have to stay at home. They can physically see their GP or nurse.
So even if you have no moral objection to abortion, the Government could, if it wanted, still insist that a woman go to a doctor before being prescribed the abortion pill. But no, it decided to further liberalise our already very liberal law.
The question is whether it will go back to the original law, requiring a physical visit to a GP when this emergency is over.
If what they have done in the South is bad, what has occurred in the North is far, far worse. When we passed our horrible abortion law in 2018, it meant that Northern Ireland was the only part of either of these islands, Britain or Ireland, to have a very restrictive law allowing abortion only in very rare circumstances.
Our repeal of the Eighth Amendment greatly emboldened abortion campaigners in the North, and in Britain, and with the Northern Ireland Assembly suspended, they took full advantage, passing a measure through the British Parliament that paved the way for the new abortion regime that took hold last week.
New regime
The new regime effectively allows abortion-on-demand up to 24 weeks of pregnancy and up to birth if the baby has a disability. The disability need not be fatal or life-limiting. It could be something like Down syndrome.
It also decriminalises abortion, something the rest of the UK, or the Republic, has not done. Indeed, few countries have completely decriminalised abortion, which is what makes the North so extreme now. In one fell swoop it has passed out most countries where abortion has been available for years.
The regulation distinguishes between 12 weeks, up to which abortion is available “without conditionality” (as in the South), and between 12 and 24 weeks, when it is permitted “where the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or girl, greater than the risk of terminating the pregnancy”.
This is so-called ‘Ground C’ in Britain. In Britain a ‘health’ reason (mental or physical) must always be given before an abortion takes place. But this apparent restriction does not stop 200,000 abortions taking place there each year, amounting now to one abortion for every three babies born. In other words, while in theory abortion in the North will be restricted after 12 weeks, in practice it will not be.
You do not have to show you are suffering from a diagnosed condition such as say, depression, in order to obtain an abortion on the mental health ground”
Furthermore, the newly published regulations actually specify that “no diagnosis of a prescribed mental health condition is required in order to access the risk to mental health ground”.
In other words, it appears that you do not have to show you are suffering from a diagnosed condition such as say, depression, in order to obtain an abortion on the mental health ground.
It seems that it will be sufficient for a woman to merely say she could not mentally cope with the demands of a newborn baby. This is certainly the case in other countries. It means that in practice the North will permit abortion-on-demand during the first six months of pregnancy.
Who knows what kind of increase there will now be to the abortion rate in the North? Given the present emergency and given that there are currently far fewer opportunities for people to meet one another, the chances are there will be no increase for the time being. There might even be a drop.
But in time, this terrible law will certainly cost far more lives than Covid-19, as will the South’s awful legislation.