Belfast, Northern Ireland (LifeNews.com) -- Pro-life advocates in Northern Ireland have presented 50,000 petitions to the government there opposing the introduction of legalized abortion. Northern Ireland's leading pro-life group Precious Life led a rally at the Stormont parliament to conclude their "Not in My Name" campaign.

The pro-life group launched their campaign in response to draft guidelines on “termination of pregnancy” issued in January by the Department of Health.

Precious Life says the guidelines are an attempt to introduce abortion-on-demand into Northern Ireland "through the back door."

"Since the Department of Health issued their abortion guidelines, Precious Life volunteers have been working day and night on the 'Not In My Name' campaign," the group's director Bernie Smyth told LifeNews.com.

She said the group and its members have been "distributing leaflets warning of the dangers in the guidelines and collecting signatures for our submission."

"We’ve had a tremendous response from the people of Northern Ireland who have given a resounding NO to the killing of our unborn babies," Smyth added. "In less than ten weeks we collected over 50,000 signatures for our submission."

The health department issued the guidelines as a result of legal action brought by the Family Planning Association of Northern Ireland in 2004. The Court of Appeal ruled that the Department should issue guidance on the law relating to abortion in Northern Ireland.

The department originally asked interested parties to send their comments to it by March 16 but because of the level of interest, the deadline was extended to April 20th.

Precious Life's event at parliament included people representing each Northern Ireland county -- Antrim, Down, Armagh, Fermanagh, Tyrone, and Derry.

Related web sites:
Precious Life - http://www.preciouslife.net