Debate contribution: United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Debate contribution by Mr Timothy Gaston on 25 November 2024.

MLA

Mr Timothy Gaston

Party at the time

Traditional Unionist Voice

Date

25 November 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4675292

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I support the DUP amendment, which brings much-needed clarity to the important issues that are being discussed. It is all well and good to claim, as the Alliance motion does, that we acknowledge:

"the difficulties and inequalities facing 25% of the population with a disability or long-term health condition".

I join those who tabled the motion in saying that we need to recognise:

"the diversity of disabilities throughout our society",

but the issue is what the motion does not say. There is no acknowledgement of the fact that, in Northern Ireland, we have the most brutal assaults on people with disabilities and that, when legislation came before the House to address that, the Alliance Party, in the main, opposed it.

How loving or compassionate does one have to be to believe that people with a disability or long-term health condition would be better off never being born? How can you, on the one hand, say that we need to recognise the diversity of disabilities in society and, on the other, ignore the fact that fewer people are being born with disabilities expressly because of the abortion laws in our Province?

Yes, go ahead.

I welcome the intervention. It gives me the opportunity to say that I am pro-life and always will be. We should not take the decision to end the life of a child. It is not the child's fault, and I am unashamedly pro-life and will remain so. When my predecessor, Jim Allister, asked the Minister of Health what happened to bodies of aborted babies, he did not get a straight answer. Why is there not a concern for them? One thing we know is that, since the change in the law, somewhere in the region of 8,500 children have never got a chance to live in Northern Ireland. Members, that is a disgrace. I will touch on something else. I will judge the sincerity of how much the Members of the House value the lives of the disabled by how their MPs vote on the assisted suicide Bill when it comes before the Commons. If the law is changed on that issue, it will send a chilling message to those with disabilities. Such legislation has the potential to change the culture of society so that the elderly see themselves as a burden. There is a real risk that what was introduced supposedly to provide people with a choice will become an expectation. Tellingly, even co-sponsors of the Bill are unable to tell us how a judgement can be made on whether someone has been coerced into availing themselves of the provisions of the Bill. In light of the significant financial windfall that death brings to some people, that is a most serious issue. It is all well and good to table a motion telling us how you value the disabled. Regardless of the result today, nothing will change. However, there is another debate this week on legislation that is a direct threat to those with disabilities: the assisted suicide Bill in Westminster. One has only to look at what happened in Canada, where there is already provision for this. Disabled people recount how they have been offered euthanasia multiple times, how they have been traumatised and how they have felt devalued. One disabled person expressed it this way: "They look at people with disabilities and see us as just better off dead". There is nothing loving or compassionate about such an outlook, whether one is talking about pre- or post-born.

583 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Second assessment

Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 21 October 2026. How the second assessment works

Verdict

Not flagged

Public interest or divisiveness

Mixed

Against the published rubric

The contribution turns a disability-rights motion into an argument about abortion and assisted dying. It attacks the motion's sponsors for opposing earlier legislation and asks "How loving or compassionate does one have to be" to hold their view. This is sharp, partisan point-scoring on a recognised social-issue flashpoint, but it targets a party's voting record and stated positions rather than portraying a community or equality group as a whole as hostile, illegitimate or a threat. It also engages with substance: the effect of abortion law on disability, and the risk of coercion under assisted-dying legislation, with the Canadian experience cited as evidence.

Public interest or divisiveness

Much of the speech is a substantive moral and legislative argument about how abortion law and a proposed assisted-dying Bill affect disabled and older people, which is a legitimate subject for debate. Alongside this, it uses the motion mainly to score a point against its sponsors, questions the "sincerity" of other Members, and moves away from the convention under debate. Both elements are substantial, but the core is a contested policy position rather than hostility towards a group's place in public life.

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:40 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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