Cóir Date: 15.05.2010

There was an interesting piece on the London Telegraph website, detailing the electioneering adventures of Daniel Hannan, Conservative MEP (and steadfast eurocritic), as he canvassed the North of Ireland in the run-up to the elections there on 6 May. His interest in the North is that the Conservative Party are standing two candidates there, whereas our interest in the story is what he found at the doors, particularly regarding abortion.

Mr Hannan says on his blog: “I met a man who had grown up in West Belfast, and whose uncle was a Sinn Féin councillor, who was voting DUP because he was against abortion.”

Past allegiances, it seems, are breaking down and the people of the North are looking more closely at the parties and their policies.

Again regarding SF and abortion, Gerry Adams was on radio in the North, when one caller rang in to query the party's stand on abortion. Here is the paraphrased transcript produced by BBC radio:

12.40 Alicia, a Catholic mother of ten, wants to know Mr Adams' view on abortion. He says Sinn Féin are against abortion as a means of birth control...He says abortion is sometimes needed when mothers are at risk.

12.41 Mr Adams says his party voted against extending the 1967 Act to NI, he is against abortion, but he doesn't want women to be criminalised. Mr Adams seems to suggest Alicia is a zealot. She is quoting from the SF manifesto on "international planned parenthood."

So to clarify: from our background research and to elaborate on Mr Adams' interview, our understanding of Sinn Féin's position on abortion is that they support it in the cases of rape, incest and to, “save the life of the mother”, though it is not clear at all from their website what exactly their stand is, as it does not feature as an issue. Of course, we stand to be corrected on this issue.

In any case, any party supporting abortion - the taking of innocent human life - because of the crimes of another, is immoral and wrong. But, suggesting that abortion is ever necessary to, “save the life of the mother”, is misleading and disingenuous, as the distinction is not made between procedures which deliberately seek to kill the baby and those in which the unintended death of the baby cannot be avoided for the sake of life of the mother. The former are properly called abortions, whereas the latter have medical names, like salpingostomy and salpingotomy, the terms which describe the medical procedure which helps a woman in case of an ectopic pregnancy.

The Irish Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists guides the doctors who care for expectant mothers. They have clearly stated that necessary medical treatments for cancer and other conditions are not abortions.

As the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ Chairman told an Oireachtas Committee in 2001: “It would never cross an obstetrician’s mind that intervening in a case of pre-eclampsia, cancer of the cervix or ectopic pregnancy is abortion. They are not abortion as far as the professional is concerned, these are medical treatments that are essential to save the life of the mother.”

Keep your eyes open for a forthcoming campaign by Youth Defence, which will draw the public's attention to this hugely significant distinction.

Here's a link you might find useful regarding the same.