“They let a female civil servant take the heat..”

The Assembly having rejected, in October last year, the previously proposed Department of Health draft guidelines on termination of pregnancy, the Health Minister Department of Health have now re-drafted those guidelines – guidelines which took 3 years to draft and which the Department, after a lengthy court battle, had to be instructed by a High Court ruling to produce. The newly proposed draft guidelines are available at the Department’s website [direct pdf link here]. As the “spokesperson for the DHSSPS” states in the departmental press release the consultation starts today [16th July] and will run for 10 weeks [Perhaps someone will tell the NI Human Rights Commission? – Ed]. There still doesn’t seem to be any reference to the issue Brian noted here. Meanwhile in the Belfast Telegraph Eamonn McCann relates a telling scene from the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.

The furtive evasions were on public display in New York last week when an official of the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister was left hanging in the wind as she tried to explain the North’s current abortion regime at hearings of the committee overseeing the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. It had been expected that a junior minister from OFMDFM would attend and field the questions.

But neither the DUP man nor the SF man could find time. Remarkable when we consider these folk normally go rigid with excitement at the mere thought of an(other) exes-paid trip to the States. They let a female civil servant take the heat.

Pete Baker