Jim Wells, who says rape victims should offer child for adoption, joined by fellow DUP minister pushing creationism in schools

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Northern Ireland’s new health minister is a Democratic Unionist party assembly member who believes that women made pregnant through rape should not be allowed an abortion.

The first minister, Peter Robinson, appointed Jim Wells, the DUP member for South Down in the regional parliament, to take up the devolved health portfolio as part of a cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday.

Two years ago Wells said that he opposed Northern Ireland’s abortion laws being changed so that rape victims could get a termination in local hospitals.

In an interview on a local radio station in August 2012, Wells said the ban in Northern Ireland on most abortions must be upheld – even in instances of rape.

Wells told Radio Ulster’s Stephen Nolan Show: “That is a tragic and difficult situation but should the ultimate victim of that terrible act [rape] – which is the unborn child – should he or she also be punished for what has happened by having their life terminated? No.”

He added: “In Northern Ireland there are hundreds of married couples who would love to adopt children, a child, a baby, and who could give support in that situation.

“A termination of a pregnancy should not be the first option in that situation. The other option is that you kill the child who’s a totally innocent victim in this terrible set of circumstances.”

“These instances are extremely rare in Northern Ireland and my concern is those who are lobbying on this issue are using it to some extent because they want abortion on demand for everyone, regardless of the circumstances.”

He also claimed that allowing rape victims to have access to terminations in Northern Irish hospitals would lead to abortion on demand.

“The stats are very low for pregnancies which arise as a result of rape, so therefore I am very worried about moves to create any change in the legislation, which would open the floodgates to full-scale abortion on demand as we have in England, where we’ve had seven million children destroyed as a result.”

Wells’s appointment to the health brief comes as Northern Ireland’s justice minister, David Ford, prepares a discussion paper on whether the law on abortion should be liberalised in the region.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where the 1967 Abortion Act does not apply and has led to thousands of local women having to travel to Britain or further afield to terminate unwanted and crisis pregnancies.

Pro-choice campaigners are hoping that Ford’s paper will suggest some reform of the region’s abortion laws and have promised legal action if the status quo, the near blanket ban on abortion, remains intact.

Robinson’s reshuffle also included removing the social development minister and DUP colleague, Nelson McCausland, from his post. McCausland has been under fire over the last few months over allegations of favouritism to firms regarding contracts for public housing contracts.

The outgoing minister is being replaced by Mervyn Storey, the DUP assemblyman for North Antrim, who has also courted controversy in the past by demanding that the biblical stories of creationism be taught as science in Northern Ireland’s schools.

Storey has also campaigned for a creationist explanation to be erected alongside the scientific one for the existence of the ancient Giant’s Causeway rock formation on the scenic north Antrim coast.