Opinion

Abortion must not be normalised in north as it has been elsewhere

Last year, October 22, abortion activists celebrated Westminster’s removal of every explicit legal protection for every unborn baby up to their being capable of being born alive – the implementation of prenatal disability discrimination, with the sanctioning of termination of life up to birth for any disability deemed ‘serious’.

Hundreds of thousands of people who live and work here wrote and protested. Seventy nine per cent of public respondents to Westminster’s public consultation rejected the proposed abortion regime – all were ignored. Some 100,000 people living and bearing witness to the positive impact of pro-both laws were deemed irrelevant.

Decades of pro-abortion activism has seemingly achieved the introduction of a conveyor belt of ‘choice’.

Nearly 700 abortions have been carried out here since the end of March. Government must be held to account and challenged to offer genuine choice. When abortion costs less than lives being lived, statutory social services suffer. Women in pregnancy will face greater discrimination and coercion to  ‘choose’ abortion, as abortion becomes the assumed and compassionate ‘choice’.

Both Lives Matter commits to proclaiming truths – there is life before birth. Every abortion ends a life and many women are harmed by abortion. Abortion must not be normalised here as it has been elsewhere, nor must the denial of human rights for pre-born children by abortion activists be allowed to permeate our culture. We commit to inspiring better, for women, for unborn children, for society.

We advocate for laws protecting both lives and policies supporting every life. We stand with women facing pregnancy crisis: growing our services directory, signposting to organisations across NI whose desire is to support women facing pregnancy crisis, pre and post-birth as well as those who do face


abortion regret.

We have seen individuals come together to offer material, emotional, practical and spiritual resources to women facing crisis. We have seen an awakening to the need to stand for life and the danger of doing nothing or staying silent.

Desmond Tutu once said, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

Our hope is that our darkest day will prove to be the point at which the tide turned against abortion and we see there is light because Both Lives Matter.

DAWN McAVOY


Belfast BT6

Partition should come to its natural end for the health of Irish people

An Irish member of the Australian health service spoke on Eamonn Dunphy’s podcast recently advising that unless we shut our borders all lockdowns are futile. Australia imposed a shutdown on people entering the country so they weren’t importing cases and when they had minimal infections like Ireland had in June and July they aggressively focused all of their resources on track, tracing and testing their close contacts effectively smothering the virus. Ireland did not and that is why the 26 counties is entering another futile lockdown that will be followed by another and Australia has sporting events with thousands attending safely.

One of the reasons given why the 26 counties can’t go down a proven successful route is there is two governmental jurisdictions on an island vastly smaller and easier to manage than Australia. Will the great and good in Irish society be highlighting the fallacy of partition and our sectarian head-counted border at a time of worldwide disaster management? How pointless it is. How dangerous at a time of a worldwide pandemic that we are pulling in different directions and declared impotent in implementing what we need to do to save lives because of institutionalised sectarianism?


Looking away even from Covid-19, women in Donegal who need a mammogram rather than travel across to Derry must take a seven-hour round trip to Galway. How does that make sense?

Partition was imposed on Ireland without a vote or any consultation from the Irish people, yet we need one to remove it. And with it being based around a gerrymandered sectarian border, they’ve rigged the rules too. There should be no vote. Partition should come to its natural end. The health of the nation, in more ways than one, depends on it.

PATRICK DONOHOE


Greencastle, Co Tyrone

A good doctor treats whole person not just the condition

Danny Boyd’s letter – Great Barrington Declaration is far-right economics (October 22) –takes the familiar approach of cancel culture that nothing good can be said about Churchill because he made mistakes. Yes, Churchill did send the Black and Tans into Ireland but prior to that he had supported Home Rule. Indeed on February 9 1912 Churchill was blocked by unionist riots from speaking at the Ulster Hall and so he moved his speech to Belfast’s Celtic Park where he was met by a crowd of 7,000. Churchill did prioritize the war effort over the Bengal famine. However, contrary to what Mr Boyd alleges that he took food out of Bengal he instead sent 200,000 tons of Australian and Iraqi wheat as relief in 1943.

The Great Barrington Declaration is authored by three professors of epidemiology from the universities of Oxford, Harvard and Stanford. It has been signed by around 11,000 scientists and 30,000 medical practitioners. I therefore find it strange that Mr Boyd claims “it is not related to epidemiology”. His claim that it is “far-right economics” is an absurd smear and symptomatic of the collapse of genuine scientific debate on this issue. The Great Barrington Declaration is concerned not just with Covid but with all aspects of society. A good doctor treats the whole person and not just the condition.

DOMINIC GALLAGHER


Glenavy, Co Antrim

Increasing dog licence fee is an outrage

Recently some politicians in the Republic have publicly called for dog licences to be increased from €20 to €100 every year. In my opinion this is an outrage to rip dog owners off and take us to the cleaners by politicians who seem to want more and more to tax us to the poor house. If the dog licence goes up to €100 this will put a heavy burden on the poor old age pensioners. Many older people are kept alive by the love they receive from their pets and encourage them to leave their homes to go for walks.

If the government puts up the price of a dog licence, I fear that this will lead to many dogs being homeless as the number of stray dogs will increase as many people won’t be able to afford to keep their dogs for financial reasons.

It’s also reported that the government will not give any increases in this years’ budget to old age pensioners and those on social welfare, which is going to make it even much harder for dog owners to keep their pets.

MARTIN FORD


Co Sligo