The British Parliament voted Monday to force without representation Northern Ireland to legalize abortion on demand.
Northern Ireland is one of the last bastions of safety for unborn babies in Europe after abortion activists pushed Ireland to repeal its pro-life constitutional amendment in 2018. On Monday, British politicians led by Labour MP Stella Creasy voted 322 to 99 to force Northern Ireland to legalize abortion for any reason up to 28 weeks of pregnancy, The Sun reports.
Pro-life advocates expressed outrage after the unprecedented vote against both the rights of unborn babies and those of the Northern Irish people to make their own laws.
Bernadette Smyth, director of Precious Life, Northern Ireland’s leading pro-life organization, slammed pro-abortion MPs as “blood-thirsty.”
“Today represents one of the darkest and most tragic days for the people of Northern Ireland and for vulnerable unborn children and mothers here,” Smyth said. “The Westminster Government have done the unthinkable. No other government in the world would dare to vote over the heads of another government and another country’s democratic process to completely ignore the democratic will of the people here.”
Northern Ireland currently does not have a parliament because of a political dispute that stems back to 2017, so abortion activists within the British government used the political chaos to push their agenda on the neighboring country.
Smyth said if Stormont, the Northern Ireland parliament, is not functioning by Oct. 11, they will be forced to adopt the pro-abortion bill.
“If passed, this Bill will introduce one of the most horrific, extreme and cruel abortion laws in the world, making abortion legal on demand right through to 28 weeks of pregnancy,” she continued. “This cruel and devastating abortion agenda is not supported by the people of Northern Ireland, and what is certain is that we will now see an enormous level of resistance to such a horrendous agenda.”
The pro-life organization Life also condemned MPs for hijacking the bill to push abortion on demand. The charity noted that the bill also affects unborn babies in England and Wales by removing legal restrictions on late-term abortions there as well.
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“What we are seeing here is a mad opportunistic rush by allies of the abortion lobby to exploit the current absence of the Northern Ireland Assembly to bully the people of Northern Ireland into accepting abortion,” spokeswoman Clara Campbell said.
Campbell said the bill is a “free-for-all business dream” for the abortion industry in the UK. And she expressed concerns that the legislation will allow abortion businesses to exploit vulnerable women as well as their unborn babies.
“It nullifies the need for legal checks and conditions on abortion which are key to protecting both women and unborn children,” she said. “It also means an escape from prosecution for people who force women into an abortion.”
She pointed to a new ComRes poll that found 66 percent of women in Northern Ireland do not want a pro-abortion law imposed on them.
Smyth urged the pro-life majority to rise up and oppose the extreme pro-abortion measure.
Abortion activists pushed the bill with claims that women are “suffering” because they cannot abort their unborn babies in Northern Ireland. They argued that the ability to kill an unborn baby for any reason up to birth is a “human right.”
“How much longer are the women of Northern Ireland expected to wait?” Creasy told MPs, according to The Guardian. “How much more are they expected to suffer before we speak up – the best of what this place does – as human rights defenders, not human rights deniers?”
Marie Stopes, a British-based abortion chain, which the government temporarily shut down in 2016 because of serious health violations, praised the pro-abortion measure as “a historic day for women’s rights.”