Northern Ireland Legalized Abortions Two Months Ago, But Most Doctors Refuse to Kill Babies

International   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Jun 16, 2020   |   9:52AM   |   Belfast, Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland abortion activists are complaining that doctors will not abort unborn babies even though the law now allows them to do so.

The country provides conscience protections for medical professionals who oppose abortion, but already pro-abortion groups are pushing to limit them.

The parenting website Baby Gaga reports two pro-abortion groups recently claimed many Northern Ireland doctors, nurses and midwives are refusing to do abortions or refer women to someone who will.

“We had a lady who went to her GP to get an abortion,” Naomi Connor of Alliance For Choice told The Guardian. “Her GP refused to help her; she asked to see someone else in the practice, and the GP said ‘no one else will help you unless you’re keeping your pregnancy, and if you are, we’ll provide you with folic acid and pregnancy support, but otherwise, we won’t help you’. We know that obstructing abortions doesn’t stop abortions, it just makes them unsafe.”

The pro-abortion groups Alliance For Choice and Doctors For Choice NI claim women’s health is in jeopardy because of medical workers who refuse to help do abortions, according to the report.

For decades, Northern Ireland protected unborn babies from abortion. Last year, however, British Parliament voted to force Northern Ireland to legalize abortions while the Stormont, the Northern Ireland legislative body, was not functioning.

Since abortions became available at the end of March, 129 unborn babies were aborted. But apparently that is not enough for abortion activists.

Mara Clarke of the Abortion Support Network told the Independent that abortions must be easily available.

“We think even one person having to travel for care is one too many, while also believing there are many people who have needed to travel who have been forced to continue unwanted pregnancies,” Clarke said.

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But abortion is not health care, and women do not need to abort their unborn babies to be healthy.

Many Northern Ireland doctors have been standing up against the abortion industry and its deadly agenda. Dr. Andrew Cupples, a pro-life general practitioner, said he will not abort unborn babies or help women do so by referring them to another doctor, according to the report.

Cupples said he would encourage a woman who come seeking an abortion to view an ultrasound of her unborn baby and help her find pregnancy resources. He told the Observer that doctors should not be forced to refer patients for a procedure that kills an unborn baby.

He is not alone. In December, more than one hundred medical professionals in an already understaffed healthcare system said they may quit if they are forced to help abort unborn babies.

In a letter to Northern Ireland Secretary of State Julian Smith, 135 doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists and other medical professionals expressed their concerns about the legalization of abortion in Northern Ireland, the Belfast Telegraph reported at the time.

“Many healthcare professionals entered their profession because they desired to protect and uphold life,” the medical workers wrote to Smith. “Consequently, many object to any involvement in abortion provision which by its very nature involves the ending of human life.”

They said conscience protections must extend beyond just helping with the actual abortion.

“Performing such tasks may be key to an abortion taking place and could lead to the professional in question feeling they are complicit in something they believe to be deeply wrong,” they explained.

They said the health system in Northern Ireland already is struggling to find enough staff. Without full conscience protections, they said it could become even worse, because some medical workers would quit rather than abort an unborn baby.

“If this measure goes ahead as proposed in the consultation document, an additional barrier will be put up for staff who for understandable reasons conscientiously object to abortion,” they wrote. “It may be the case that some excellent healthcare professionals, who have given their lives to helping patients, feel they have no choice but to leave the profession they love if they are mandated to act in a way which is contrary to their conscience.”

They told Smith that they cannot remain silent on the matter; lives and livelihoods are at stake.

“The value of life, the need to celebrate and accommodate conscientious objection, and the protection of the integrity of our democracy is too precious for us to remain silent,” they wrote.

In October, 911 medical professionals also signed a letter in opposition to legalized abortion in their country, the Independent reported at the time. Initiated by Cupples, the letter urged the government to protect unborn babies’ rights as well as the rights of medical professionals to practice their beliefs.

However, Amnesty International and the British Pregnancy Advisory Services, an abortion chain, both argued for limiting conscience protections to the actual abortion. Under their proposals, medical workers still could be forced to refer women for abortions and help with the treatment before and after the abortion.

Northern Ireland was 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. There, medical professionals also fear being forced to give up their livelihoods or help abort unborn babies. Guidelines from the Irish Medical Council introduced last year tell doctors that they must either abort unborn babies themselves or refer women to someone who will.