No sign of abortion amendment
Our four main party leaders have signed a letter condemning it, and our four main church leaders have backed them, but today, as MPs debate the time limits for abortion, there is no sign of any Westminster amendment intended to extend the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland.
Yesterday the DUP put out another in a series of statements criticising the Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris for tabling a "disturbing" amendment designed to "impose a liberalised abortion regime on the Province". It's true that Mr Harris has previously been quoted as supporting the extension of abortion here However when I spoke to the Oxford West MP last week he told me he had no such amendment and was not dealing with the issue.
It's not impossible that such an amendment could be tabled at a later stage. One of our local MPs told me he was getting some flak from English MPs. He said they took the view that if Northern Ireland MPs wanted to interfere in the time limits for abortion in England, then maybe English MPs should interefere in the ban on abortion here.
But so far there has been no amendment tabled - so, if that remains the case, were fears of such a move missplaced or has the united nature of the local anti-abortion campaign deterred English MPs from tacking this issue on to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill?
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