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New NI pro-life party make gains in election, as buffer zone MLA loses seat

New pro-life party Aontú saw significant gains in last week’s local elections in Northern Ireland, while the MLA who brought forward the Bill to introduce censorship zones around abortion clinics in Northern Ireland lost her seat. 

The local elections held last week on 5 May saw new pro-life party Aontú receive 12,777 votes, finishing ahead of the long-established party People Before Profit, with commentators saying that Aontú is in a strong position to win seats at the next local government election. 

Commentators have also suggested that Aontú gained votes at the expense of the SDLP, who have recently had all of their MLAs vote for introducing censorship zones around abortion clinics . The SDLP lost four of its seats in Stormont, the equivalent of one-third of its MLAs. 

Claire Bailey, leader of the Green Party, also lost her seat. Ms Bailey brought forward the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Bill that will effectively criminalise offers of assistance within 150m of abortion clinics or hospitals where a censorship zone is in place. Her party had also been explicit in its manifesto, which explained that they intended to expand abortion access.

Pro-life party, the TUV, almost trebled its vote compared with 2017, but Jim Allister remains its sole MLA.

The other major pro-life party, the DUP, lost three of its seats.

Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson, said: “It is encouraging to see that most parties who made explicit pro-life commitments in their manifestos made such gains. Both the SDLP, with its patchy record on pro-life issues, and the Green party, which was explicitly pro-abortion, did poorly in this election with the former losing a third of its seats and the latter losing all of them”.

“Hopefully momentum will continue to grow for the pro-life movement in Northern Ireland and parties and candidates more generally will be encouraged to make their pro-life convictions explicit without fear of losing power”.

Dear reader,

On Friday 29 November, MPs narrowly voted to support Kim Leadbeater’s dangerous assisted suicide Bill at Second Reading.

But this is only the first step - there’s still time to stop it.

An analysis published in The Independent shows that at least 36 MPs who supported the Bill made it clear they did so only to allow further debate or because they had concerns that mean they won’t commit to supporting the Bill at Third Reading.

With the vote passing by a margin of 55, just 28 MPs switching their stance to oppose the Bill would ensure it is defeated at Third Reading.

With more awareness of the serious risks, many MPs could change their position.

If enough do, we can defeat this Bill at its Third Reading and stop it from becoming law.

You can make a difference right now by contacting your MP to vote NO at Third Reading. It only takes 30 seconds using our easy-to-use tool, which you can access by clicking the button below.