Child left '˜distressed' after leaflet featuring '˜dead and bloodied baby' posted through letter box

The mum-of-three said that although her personal view is pro-life, she is angry with the group, as she is also a mother who seeks to protect her nine-year-old child from seeing things that could give her nightmares.

“I was fuming,” she said. “It was broad day-light, half seven last night, and there was kids out on the street playing and a man was running round putting leaflets in through doors of that grotesque image. It was awful.

“I was in the living room along with my older son and daughter, and she came up, really visibly upset, and I says ‘are you ok?’.

“She says ‘mummy I just saw something’, she handed me over this. She’s nine going on ten and she wouldn’t be easily shocked.

“But she was really shocked and really upset,” she added.

“They are foisting a really adult image on children who are so innocent, my daughter doesn’t even know where babies come from, never mind me trying to explain why somebody is putting a pamphlet through our door with a dead baby.

“I don’t know if you could get an image of a dead baby that is acceptable, but that one is particularly grotesque, it’s really disturbing.

“I know they are out to shock, but give people the choice, not put it on the front of a leaflet.

“If they want to respect a child’s life, start with the innocent ones who don’t need to see that!” she said on Facebook.

Railing against the content of the leaflets, the angry mum said the leaflet left her daughter “confused and distressed” adding: “I doubt the people responsible are capable of shame. MY child’s life is important to ME even though her innocence isn’t to others who have political hard ball to play!

“It’s so sickening that people have to go to such depths to derail their opponents,” she added on the post.

Speaking for one of the parties mentioned in the leaflet, Sinn Fein Assembly candidate, Linda Dillon said the pamphlet contained “lies” as Sinn Fein is a pro-life party that takes a compassionate stance in relation to cases of rape and fatal foetal abnormality.

“Anybody has the right to protest,” she explained. “But what is written in that is lies, because Sinn Fein is a pro-life party (but) we do believe there needs to be compassionate legislation. We have a responsibility to look after everybody in our society.

“In certain circumstances - fatal foetal abnormality or sexual crime - we need to legislate to look after those women.”

“To put that image out there for any child to be exposed to,” she continued, “women who have lost babies, women who have been through horrendous situations, maybe women who have had babies with foetal abnormalities who maybe have been forced to go down the road of termination - in what way does anybody think that’s going to help those people?

“I’m pro-life, but I think anyone putting that through someone’s door is disgusting. I don’t think this is appropriate to be putting through letter boxes, where vulnerable people and children are exposed to it.

“I do uphold the right of anybody to protest, I just don’t think this is the way to do it.”