Church leaders ‘gravely concerned’ by changes to abortion

Heads of the Church of Ireland, Methodist Church in Ireland, Catholic Church, Presbyterian Church and the Irish Council of Churches are calling on members and congregations to pray, call for change, and to lobby their locally elected representatives.

Unless devolution at Stormont is revived within weeks, the Government is bound to liberalise the law surrounding terminations following the passage of Westminster legislation.

The church leaders said: “There is no evidence that these changes reflect the will of the people affected by them, as they were not consulted.

“They go far beyond the ‘hard cases’ some have been talking about.”

They said they were gravely concerned that the imposition of Westminster legislation:

– Removes from law all explicit protection for the unborn child up to 28 weeks of pregnancy;

– Offers no specific protection for unborn babies with disability;

– Does not prohibit abortion based on the sex of the baby;

– Creates a potential vacuum of up to five months in Northern Ireland for unregulated abortion to exist with all the attendant health risks to women.

They invited their members to sign an online petition created by Baroness Nuala O’Loan, and added: “Our Northern Ireland political parties have it in their own hands to do something about this.

“They all need to take risks and make the compromises necessary to find an accommodation that will…