Delegates vote against report views on abortion, euthanasia

The Church of Ireland Synod has refused by two votes to adopt elements of a Role of the Church Committee report which dealt with abortion and prolonging life artificially.

An amendment that two elements be dropped was accepted by 166 votes to 164. Both were prepared by the committee's medical ethics working group.

The one which dealt with the preservation of life said "that in certain exceptional circumstances the practice of withdrawal of medical treatment may be extended to include artificial feeding and hydration".

It recognised this "as a morally acceptable practice because the Christian concern for life is centred on the capacity or potential to relate to God and one's fellows, and it is recognised that a point may be reached where that capacity is absent and cannot be recovered".

The second element was a response to the Government's Green Paper on Abortion. It proposed that while abortion should be illegal it ought to be permitted in exceptional circumstances.

These included instances of rape and incest, substantial risk to the life of the mother, lethal or severe congenital deformity in the foetus, where there was a danger to the mental and physical health of the mother, and where there was a likelihood of suicide.

Archdeacon Donald McLean of Derry said a headline on the abortion element in The Irish Times on Monday had said the synod had called for abortion to be made illegal in most cases, whereas it was part of a submission to the synod for its consideration.

Bishop Harold Miller, of Down and Dromore diocese, said he could not believe what he saw when he looked at both elements.

Pretending to take cases as exceptional established "a pseudoethical moral basis for such things to become more widespread", he said.

He was not talking only about cases of persistent vegetative state, he said. He referred to the paragraph which described as morally acceptable the withdrawal of medical treatment from a person whose "capacity or potential to relate to God and to one's fellows" was absent and could not be recovered.

That was "an absolutely horrific statement", he said.

Christian belief in the matter was based on the conviction of the value of every human being as created in the image of God, "not on any capacity".

There was "not one person in this room who can tell me when someone isn't capable of relating to God", he said.

Rev Andrew Forster, chaplain at Queen's University, said the abortion element "departs from a resolutely pro-life position".

He had been taught human life began at conception and he queried who would define "severe abnormality" as described.

He pointed out that such exceptions had been the back door in the 1967 abortion act in Britain which had since seen five million abortions.

Lady Brenda Sheil felt the debate had been one-sided and asked the synod to remember that the abortion element had been prepared by medical experts.

She referred to exceptions such as a 12-year-old rape victim and asked, "Is it Christian that that child should be forced through pregnancy and possibly become a mental and physical wreck?"