New abortion legislation spells dark days for the UK | Jason Plessas

“A dark day for Northern Ireland”, the DUP MP Carla Lockhart declared. “Words cannot express the disappointment we feel at the refusal of Westminster to respect devolution, the democratic process and the voices of the many people who live and work here,” Dawn McAvoy, co-founder of Both Lives Matter lamented, and well they might. 

Northern Ireland’s abortion legislation, originally imposed during Stormont’s fractious three-year hiatus and which the House of Commons voted to reaffirm by a margin of 104 votes last week, is the most extreme legislation of this kind known in these isles. It brings the recalcitrant Province into line with the more ‘enlightened’ England & Wales, in permitting de-facto abortion on demand for up to 24 weeks of a pregnancy, and abortion of babies with various non-fatal disabilities at any point up to birth. 

On both these counts, the legislation is totally alien to Irish culture, both Protestant and Catholic; the next-door Republic’s policy restricts most cases of abortion to 12 weeks in the gestation period, and the most recent proposal originating from Northern Ireland itself recommended only permitting abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality. The Conservative peer Lord Shinkwin described Northern Ireland as the safest place in the UK to be disabled - a fragile, happy state this Act imperils. 

But the legislation goes even further than that. For the first time, a constituent part of the UK will now legally permit sex-selective abortion up to 12 weeks. It is by omission rather than by commission, but it threatens to turn Northern Ireland into a “haven” for parents wishing to abort baby girls, as the Canadian Medical Association Journal described the impact of Canada’s similarly permissive laws. 

Yet none of the above constitutional, policy and cultural reasons stayed the hands of the 253 MPs who approved the package wholesale. Nor did the fact that opposition to the bill was as much founded on democratic concerns as pro-life ones gives pause to these honourable members. The combined moral weight of 70 out of 95 Stormont MLAs rejected the legislation. Polling evidence suggests overwhelming, cross-community public opposition with just five per cent of Ulster residents who support 24 weeks, according to a study for the University of Liverpool. And, with an 18,000 strong petition, were not enough. The deeply unpopular regulations, much like the Terminator himself, came back. The optics for Unionists are uncomfortable; much more redolent of a conquering Cromwell than a reforming Gladstone. 

If all this cannot convert into a pro-life victory, what can? The pro-life movement risks total demoralisation unless it can put a break on the British abortion juggernaut soon. We must remember that one of the less controversial elements of Labour’s 2019 manifesto was the full decriminalisation of terminations, for any reason, up to birth. 

However, recent events show what can be achieved in the face of seemingly hopeless odds. The success of A Woman’s Place and Fair Play For Women in thwarting self-ID at Westminster is a remarkable instruction in grassroots outmanoeuvring of more established and cocksure lobbyists. Many pro-lifers, notably Right to Life, have laid the foundations for this: they know exactly who their friends are in Parliament, having correctly identified a large fall in the proportion of pro-choice MPs in December. 

There is a lot to be said for being ‘an arrow’ - that is, choosing one issue to concentrate on and gathering support around it. In the case of England & Wales, non-fatal disability would seem a logical focal point. The concerns have genuine appeal that can cross ideological divides: while we conservatives should maintain our healthy scepticism of the far-left sect that have infiltrated the Black Lives Matter movement, we must remember that many of those repeating its slogan do so earnestly and without extremist agenda, and thus for whom the phrase “Disabled Lives Matter” would be uttered in the same breath. 

The cause also now has the perfect frontwoman in Heidi Crowter. It will be interesting to see how the prevaricating received wisdom on the status of the unborn disabled fares against Crowter’s unabashed honesty about how the current law makes people with Down’s Syndrome feel, as Carla Lockhart brilliantly highlighted in the House of Commons.  In the brave new world of pro-choice Ulster, however, focus on the horror of a new potential gendercide may well prove most urgent.

Political timing is also essential. As disheartening as the Westminster defeat is, seasoned pro-lifers are well aware that it bats authority back over the Irish Sea, where the truth that life begins at conception has not been so thoroughly cancelled. Repeal of at least some of the most extreme measures is likely, momentum from which could kickstart a long-overdue rebalancing toward the rights of the child in the rest of the United Kingdom. 

In the long term? Could we ever come to a state where the unborn have full and equal status as human beings? Perhaps, but it would take a Copernican revolution in the way we think about prenatal life before it would even be conceivable. Nobody, still less we who call ourselves pro-life, would want to risk a return to the deadly days of backstreet abortions. The burden falls on pro-lifers to offer a third way - an assurance that the crushing choice between an irreversible, often traumatising operation and a lifetime of lonely struggle need not be the binary absolute it may seem. 

CARE leads the way with its advocacy of crisis pregnancy centres, and LIFE’s Zoe’s Place Baby Hospices offer a truly compassionate answer to the painful conundrum of fatal foetal disability. The fantastic work of those organisations would need to be expanded several times over to be considered a truly viable alternative. The meaningful discourse necessary to that end is currently extremely difficult, as the UK finds itself in a nadir of cultural confidence. But, just as the British mission against slavery was partly a reaction to a blow to national morale taken in 1776, a modern mission to restore natural rights to the dehumanised could bring healing even beyond its expressed aim.