The Family Planning Association (FPA) are campaigning for abortion-on-demand to be legalised in Northern Ireland, and have claimed that women here are not being represented by the “male dominated” Assembly.

They have sent a questionaire to all the members of the Assembly at Stormont on abortion in Northern Ireland.

The FPA survey - "Abortion in Northern Ireland: Attitudes Survey" - is full of loaded questions and presuppositions, making it difficult to give a correct answer. Many of the answer options are limited to those that serve the FPA’s agenda. The survey is anonymous with no reference numbers or any identifying criteria.

Their survey makes no reference to the rights of the unborn child. Therefore the results of their survey will give an inaccurate representation of the attitudes and mindsets of Members of the Assembly relating to abortion in Northern Ireland.

Precious Life has now written to all the Assembly Members to expose the motives of the FPA, and to give Assembly Members useful information to counteract the pro-abortion survey.

Here is the information we sent to Assembly Members..

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QUESTION 1 - Women who have been given a diagnosis of severe fetal abnormality should be able to access an abortion legally within Northern Ireland

QUESTION 2 - Women who have been raped should be able to access an abortion legally within Northern Ireland

QUESTION 3 - Women who are victims of incest should be able to access abortion legally within Northern Ireland

QUESTION 4 - Abortions should be made available within Northern Ireland in the first 9 weeks of pregnancy

QUESTION 5 - Women in Northern Ireland should be able to access an abortion free on the NHS in England

QUESTION 6 - As an elected representative I have a responsibility towards my constituents who are refused access to abortion services in Northern Ireland

QUESTION 7 - The decision whether or not to have a child is a moral and personal decision, and that a woman’s own conscience is the best guide for making such a decision

QUESTION 8 - Women who choose to have an abortion should be treated with respect and compassion


QUESTION 1 – Women who have been given a diagnosis of severe fetal abnormality should be able to access an abortion legally within Northern Ireland
AGREE? DISAGREE? UNSURE?

Abortion for ‘fetal abnormality’ is illegal in Northern Ireland. Breedagh Hughes - NI Board Secretary for the Royal College of Midwives - has stated that "there is very seldom, if ever, a risk to the mother’s life in cases of fetal abnormality" (Letter to a Northern Ireland student - 4 September 2003)

A doctor’s diagnosis of ‘fetal abnormality’ can sometimes be wrong. There are cases where parents were given such a diagnosis but chose to keep their baby. These parents were then amazed to give birth to children with no physical or mental disability.

But of course the diagnosis is often accurate and the child is born with a serious disability. It is hard to raise a disabled child. He or she will require extra care, attention and effort throughout their life. What makes this a ‘hard case’, however, is not whether the child deserves to live or die. What is hard is the difficult responsibilities that letting the child live will require of the parents.

Aborting children on the basis of their handicaps jeopardises the rights of born people who are handicapped. People with disabilities have rightly been working hard to achieve recognition for their needs. To justify abortion on the grounds that the baby is or might be disabled is to express a bigotry against people with disabilities and should not be countenanced in a democratic society.

What about a child that will probably be born dead or die shortly after birth, for example, an anencephalic child who doesn’t have a fully developed brain. It is one thing to know a child will probably die and another to take the child’s life. Many families have had precious and enriching experiences naming and bonding with an anencephalic child. Then they experience healthy grief at the natural death of this family member. This is in stark contrast to the unhealthy grief and guilt that comes from aborting the child.

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QUESTION 2 – Women who have been raped should be able to access an abortion legally within Northern Ireland. AGREE? DISAGREE? UNSURE?

QUESTION 3 – Women who are victims of incest should be able to access abortion legally within Northern Ireland. AGREE? DISAGREE? UNSURE?

Abortion advocates exploit the tragedy of rape or incest victims and ask, "Why should these women be forced to suffer through a nine-month pregnancy after they have already endured such abuse?" But rape and incest cases are not typical situations of women seeking abortion. Pregnancies resulting from rape are extremely rare: less than 1% of all pregnancies. To justify the thousands of abortions every year on the basis of the relatively few pregnancies resulting from rape would be ludicrous. Laws must not be built on ‘hard cases’. Even the 1967 Abortion Act makes no reference to women who have been raped or the victims of incest.

Still, for those few women who do find themselves in this tragic situation, abortion is not a compassionate alternative. Research indicates that such abortions increase the physical and emotional turmoil of the woman rather than relieve it. In fact, the only major study of pregnant rape victims, conducted by Dr. Sandra Mahkorn, revealed that 75 - 85% chose against abortion. This evidence alone should cause people to pause and reflect on the presumption that abortion is wanted or even best for sexual assault victims.

The case against abortion of incest pregnancies is even stronger. Studies show that incest victims rarely ever voluntarily agree to an abortion. Instead of viewing the pregnancy as unwanted, the incest victim is more likely to see the pregnancy as a way out of the incestuous relationship because the birth of her child will expose the criminal sexual activity.

Women and girls in these situations need the compassionate support of churches, friends and family to help them begin to heal.

When a pregnancy is the result of rape or incest we must be careful who gets the blame. Rape is never the fault of the child. The rapist is guilty and should be punished, not the innocent child.

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QUESTION 4 - Abortions should be made available within Northern Ireland in the first 9 weeks of pregnancy? AGREE? DISAGREE? UNSURE?

Medical science clearly shows that life begins at conception. Dr. Jerome Lejeune - the ‘Father of Modern Genetics’ who discovered the chromosome abnormality that causes Down syndrome - said, "To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion....it is plain experimental evidence."

Advances in medical technology allow us to view beautiful 3D images of a child in her mother’s womb. And thanks to a wide variety of medical techniques, doctors can now, not only view, but also diagnose and operate on an unborn child. Blood transfusions are even given to babies while still in the womb. The humanity of the unborn child is undeniable.

Consider the following:

• At 18 days of gestation, the baby’s heart begins occasional pulsation.
• At 20 days, the foundation for the entire nervous system exists.
• At 21 days, the heart begins to beat regularly and pumps through the circulatory system.
• At 30 days, the eyes, ears, mouth, kidneys and liver exist.
• At 42 days, brain waves are reliably present and reflexes exist.
• At 45 days, teeth buds are present; skeleton is complete; movement begins.
• At 56 days, all body systems are present; the baby reacts to pain.
• At 9-10 weeks, she squints, retracts her tongue, and will bend her fingers around an object.
• At 11-12 weeks, her arms and legs move; she swallows, sucks her thumb, inhales and exhales amniotic fluid, and has fingernails. All body systems and organs are developed and functioning, from now on the baby just grows and matures

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QUESTION 5 - Women in Northern Ireland should be able to access an abortion free on the NHS in England. AGREE? DISAGREE? UNSURE?

The fact that the 1967 Abortion Act makes abortion freely accessible in England, Scotland and Wales, doesn’t take away from the fact that abortion is still wrong and the Act is bad law. That is the reason thousands of people across the UK have been campaigning for over 40 years to have the Abortion Act repealed.

And with the current financial crisis in the Health Service (and indeed the entire economy of the country), many people are perturbed that abortions – which are never medically necessary - should be paid for at taxpayers expense.

Pro-abortion advocates claim that its not "fair" that women in Northern Ireland cannot get free abortion in England. If the issue of women travelling to England and paying for abortion was simply a matter of "fairness" then the question could be asked - is it fair that unborn children in England have less protection than unborn children in Northern Ireland?

But fairness is not the issue here. There are many laws that apply in England that do not apply to Northern Ireland and vice-versa.

Women in Northern Ireland with unplanned pregnancies must be given all the help and support they need to keep their baby. As Lord Justice Nicholson said at the Court of Appeal in 2004, we must "seek to reduce the number of women and girls going away to seek an abortion".

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QUESTION 6 - As an elected representative I have a responsibility towards my constituents who are refused access to abortion services in Northern Ireland.
AGREE? DISAGREE? UNSURE?

The only reason a woman would be refused access to abortion in Northern Ireland is because it would be an illegal act in Northern Ireland. Elected representative have a responsibility towards their constituents to ensure that the law here is upheld.

Elected representatives should be genuinely concerned about equal rights and opportunities for women. But they must not allow themselves to be conned into accepting abortion as part of a "women’s rights package deal." It has devastating effects on women’s physical and mental health. Abortion is an abuse and exploitation of vulnerable women cleverly disguised as a promotion of their rights.

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QUESTION 7 - The decision whether or not to have a child is a moral and personal decision and that a woman’s own conscience is the best guide for making such a decision. AGREE? DISAGREE? UNSURE?

The phrase "decision whether or not to have a child is a moral and personal decision" does not necessarily refer to abortion. The decision to abort an unborn child may be a personal decision, but it is still a wrong decision. Even the 1967 Abortion Act which legalised abortion does not permit a woman’s own personal conscience to be the best guide for making such a decision. The Act states that an abortion must have the approval of two registered medical practitioners.

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QUESTION 8 - Women who choose to have an abortion should be treated with respect and compassion. AGREE? DISAGREE? UNSURE?

Women who choose to have an abortion should be treated with true respect and compassion. True respect means informing a woman of all the risks and dangers to her physical and mental health following abortion; the stages of development of her unborn child; and what abortion will do to her unborn child. True compassion means giving the woman all the help and support she needs to keep her baby. As Lord Justice Nicholson said at the Court of Appeal in 2004, we must "....encourage those seeking an abortion in Northern Ireland to make a different choice."

[Back to QUESTION LIST]

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