3Public and political opinion and religious beliefs
Petitions supporting the existing law on abortion
22.Many of the written submissions address public and political opinion and religious beliefs in relation to abortion law in Northern Ireland. Both Lives Matter, a campaign group supporting the existing law, reflects the views in many of the submissions and says; “Recent ComRes polling of NI adults shows that 64 per cent of people think that abortion should be decided by Northern Ireland’s elected representatives, rising to 66 per cent of women and 70 per cent of 18 to 34 year olds.”37
23.John Austin was one of many individuals who submitted evidence to the Committee stating that there is no support for reform of the law in Northern Ireland. He stated:
Huge support for our pro-life laws has been proven through the overwhelming response to many pro-life campaigns in recent years. In November 2016, 300,000 pro-life petitions were presented to the Stormont Parliament Buildings. These petitions, presented on behalf of the pro-life majority in Northern Ireland, served as a powerful reminder to the Northern Ireland Assembly that unborn children must continue to be protected by our laws.38
24.The petitions were referred to by a number of witnesses and in much of the written evidence supporting the current law. A written answer from the Justice Minister, Claire Sugden, in December 2016 provides further details about the petitions delivered to her:
What I received on 28 November consisted of 47 boxes containing multiple petitions dating from 2001/02 to 2014. In all there were nine separate campaigns identified by my officials, relating to subjects such as, in 2001/02, ensuring that the human rights of unborn children are protected in proposals from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission on a new Bill of Rights; plans by a ‘group of pro-abortion MPs’ to change the law on abortion in Northern Ireland in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, due for debate in the House of Commons in February/March 2008; and opposition, in 2012, to Marie Stopes International opening a clinic in Northern Ireland.
There was no petition relating to termination of pregnancy for fatal fetal abnormality and no petition dated after September 2014.
There were also addresses identified in the material provided which were not in Northern Ireland.39
25.The Committee has received 2,260 identical submissions from different people via the Right to Life website which have been published under the submission of Robert Eaton.40 A wide range of views were reflected in the evidence, including that:
- Abortion law in Northern Ireland should be decided by the NI Assembly, not Westminster, and noting that none of the Committee members represent a seat in NI;
- The law on abortion in NI saves lives and that Both Lives Matter’s research found that an estimated 100,000 individuals are alive today who would otherwise not be if Northern Ireland had adopted the 1967 Abortion Act;
- The law protects individuals who are disabled from unjust discrimination;
- The Supreme Court judgment does not provide a basis for widespread access to abortion on any grounds to be brought to Northern Ireland; and
- The CEDAW Convention itself does not mention abortion and members of the Supreme Court have also highlighted that the views of bodies such as the CEDAW Committee are only of “marginal relevance”.41 There is “no basis in human rights law to overturn the devolution settlement.”42
Social attitudes to abortion
Public opinion
26.Researchers and campaigners have told us that there is popular support for reform of the law on abortion, which is particularly strong in certain circumstances. ARK is a joint Ulster University and Queen’s University research centre. It runs the annual Economic and Social Research Council-funded Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) Survey, the equivalent to the British Social Attitudes survey. It carried out the most comprehensive survey of public attitudes on abortion to date in 2016 when it asked a representative sample of the Northern Ireland public about their views relating to abortion and abortion law.
27.63 per cent of respondents said that “It is a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have an abortion”. 83 per cent of respondents thought that abortion should be legal where the life of a woman is at risk and 76 per cent where there is a serious threat to her mental or physical health. 19 per cent of people expressed the view that abortion should definitely or probably be illegal even if “a doctor says that there is more risk to the life of a pregnant woman if she continues with a pregnancy than if she were to have an abortion”.43
28.In relation to cases where there has been a diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality, 81 per cent of respondents to the survey said that abortion should definitely or probably be legal where the foetus has a serious abnormality and will not survive the birth and 73 per cent also feel this should be the case where the foetus has a serious abnormality and may not survive beyond the birth. With regard to rape and incest, ARK told us that 54 per cent think that abortion should definitely be legal if a woman has become pregnant because of rape or incest with a further 24 per cent saying it should probably be legal in such situations. 43 per cent of respondents supported abortion being legal because a woman does not want to have children, the same percentage said that abortion should definitely not be legal in this situation.44
29.The 2016 survey found strong public opposition to the criminalisation of women who have abortions with 70 per cent of respondents saying that a woman should never go to prison for having an abortion. 63 per cent of respondents disagreed that doctors should face criminal charges if they carry out an abortion and 70 per cent of respondents believed that abortion should be a matter for medical regulation and not criminal law.
30.There is some evidence about how attitudes have changed over time. ARK told us that in 1990, 71 per cent of respondents to the Northern Ireland Social Attitudes survey were in favour of the law allowing abortion where a woman had become pregnant as a result of a rape; in 2016, 78 per cent of NILT respondents said that the law should definitely/probably allow abortion in cases of rape or incest.45
31.Amnesty International refers in its joint submission with the FPA to the findings of its own opinion polling in October 2018 which it says is the first major opinion poll since the Irish referendum relating to abortion. The polling looked at the attitudes of the public in Northern Ireland and Great Britain separately to gauge opinions about the law on abortion in Northern Ireland; “The results show 65% of adults in Northern Ireland agreeing that abortion should not be a crime[ … ]. 66% of the Northern Irish public think that Westminster should reform the law in the absence of a devolved government.”46
32.We took evidence from Ministers and officials about public opinion on the law on abortion in Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Rt Hon. Karen Bradley MP, agreed that the latest polling indicates support for changing the law in certain circumstances, particularly fatal foetal abnormality, rape and incest. She noted that there is also evidence in opinion polling that there is not support for the law in other circumstances.47
33.Maura McCallion set out the position of the Attorney General for Northern Ireland in her evidence. She referenced Lord Mance’s statement in the Supreme Court that a representative democracy “can accommodate a difference or a divergence between public opinion and what the elected legislature decides”, continuing that; “As a policy choice for the legislature, how it operates and what it does in terms of abortion law, the Attorney’s view is it is not required to do anything by the convention or by international obligations at the moment.”48
Religious beliefs
34.Many of the written submissions we have received supporting the existing law refer to religious beliefs.49 A member of the public said in his submission:
I am a Christian attending Moira Baptist Church, and believe that life begins at conception. I am proud that my country has so far resisted efforts to liberalise the abortion law here. It is estimated that around 100,000 people are alive today who would have been aborted if the Abortion Act 1967 had applied here. The Advertising Standards Agency accept that this figure is a credible and conservative estimate.
I believe Northern Ireland’s law must be respected. The will of our elected representatives was last made clear in February 2016 when a clear majority of Northern Ireland’s MLAs backed the sanctity of life in a series of votes at Stormont.50
35.ARK told us that, as in Britain, people with a religious affiliation in Northern Ireland have changed their view about whether abortion should be lawful in certain circumstances and this is particularly notable among Catholics:
In 1990, only 28 per cent of Catholics compared to 75 per cent of Protestants and 78 per cent of those with no religion thought that the law should allow abortion where there is a strong chance of a serious defect in the baby. In 2016, 72 per cent of Catholics agreed that abortion definitely or probably should be legal where the foetus has a fatal abnormality and the baby will not survive beyond the birth.51
Political opinion
Table 2: Seats by party52
|
1998 |
2003 |
2007 |
2011 |
2016 |
2017* |
|
|
DUP |
20 |
30 |
36 |
38 |
38 |
28 |
|
UUP |
28 |
27 |
18 |
16 |
16 |
10 |
|
SF |
18 |
24 |
28 |
29 |
28 |
27 |
|
SDLP |
24 |
18 |
16 |
14 |
12 |
12 |
|
APNI |
6 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
8 |
8 |
|
UKUP |
5 |
1 |
||||
|
PUP |
2 |
1 |
||||
|
NIWC |
2 |
|||||
|
Green |
1 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
||
|
TUV |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|||
|
PBPA |
2 |
1 |
||||
|
Independent/Others |
3 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
Northern Ireland |
108 |
108 |
108 |
108 |
108 |
90 |
*There was a reduction in seats after the 2016 election.
Northern Ireland Assembly decisions
36.In 2016, the Northern Ireland Assembly voted against amendments to the Justice (No.2) Bill to provide for abortion in cases where there had been a diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality and where the pregnancy was as a result of a sexual crime.53 Following this, the leader of the DUP asked the Health Minister to establish a group to make recommendations on how this issue could be addressed.54 This is the last vote to have taken place in the Assembly before it ceased functioning in January 2017.
Political parties in Northern Ireland
37.We heard evidence that attitudes towards abortion among political parties in Northern Ireland may have changed substantially since the last time there was a vote on abortion in the Assembly in 2016. Amnesty International UK and the FPA refer in their joint submission to the statement in September 2018 signed by Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the Alliance Party, and the UUP which said: “We call on UK government to decriminalise abortion by repealing sections 58 and 59 of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act and to ensure a human rights compliant framework governing access to abortion.”55
38.We met with representatives of Northern Ireland’s political parties in November 2018 and January 2019 and have also received written submissions from political parties.
39.The DUP continues not to support changes to the law. Former Health Minister Jim Wells said in 2018 “The Assembly last dealt with this issue on February 10, 2016, and made a very, very clear decision—we do not want any change in the law in Northern Ireland.[ … ] No doubt if the Assembly was back it would make exactly the same decision.”56
40.Sinn Féin said in its written submission that, under the Good Friday Agreement, the British Government has a responsibility to protect the rights of citizens. It wants to see sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Persons Act 1861 repealed in order to decriminalise abortion. Sinn Féin says the next step must be local legislation to allow for human rights compliant access to healthcare and that their preference is for this to be done by “locally elected representatives in a local assembly” with a British and Irish Intergovernmental Conference being established to deal with it in the absence of an assembly.57
41.The SDLP’s position on abortion is a pro-life one but is a matter of conscience for the party.58 Abortion is also a matter of conscience for the Alliance Party and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). In April 2018 UUP Justice spokesperson Doug Beattie MLA welcomed the publication of the Working Group’s report on Fatal Fetal Abnormality and criticised that fact that there was no Executive in place to consider or implement its recommendations:
Now that the report has at long last been published it makes for sobering but thought-provoking reading and we should all sit up and listen when a report such as this conclusively states that our health workers simply find the current situation to be professionally untenable.59
42.The Green Party made a written submission in which it said that abortion should be decriminalised in Northern Ireland. It says; “The law that criminalises Northern Irish women was passed by the UK Parliament in 1861 it is out of date and seriously damaging to many women and girls. This is not a constitutional issue but a simple repeal of legislation.” It goes on to say that; “The current laws breach the rights of Northern Irish women this is not a question of health or home affairs law but of human rights which are reserved to Westminster.”60 People Before Profit support reform of the law on abortion and Traditional Unionist Voice support the existing law.
39 Northern Ireland Assembly, written question, AQW 8583/16–21
49 Mr William Baird (ANI0095), Mrs Elizabeth Steele (ANI0107), Newbuildings Independent Methodist Church (ANI0136)
52 Election Report: Northern Ireland Assembly Election, 2 March 2017, Northern Ireland Assembly Research and Information Service Research Paper, March 2017
53 Voting on amendments to the Justice (No. 2) Bill, Northern Ireland Assembly
54 Report of the Working Group on Fatal Fetal Abnormality, Department of Justice and Department of Health, 11 October 2016
56 Abortion: London will not risk law change in Northern Ireland, claims DUP’s Jim Wells, Belfast Telegraph, 1 June 2018, Belfast Telegraph website, accessed April 2019
58 SDLP members support conscience vote on abortion matters, 19 May 2018, BBC website, accessed April 2019
59 Beattie comments on the publication of the report on termination of pregnancies in fatal foetal abnormality cases, 25 April 2018, UUP website, accessed April 2019
Published: 25 April 2019