THE DUP is refusing to support plans to introduce a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, claiming it is biased towards Nationalists.In 2006 the British government established a forum to help draw up a bill of rights. The forum included all the main political parties as well as various church and community leaders. The group's aim was to come up with legislative protection for a wide range of issues including children, women, culture, identity, victims and criminal justice.However, hopes that the forum could come up with agreement over a bill of rights were severely damaged this week when the DUP claimed that the proposals were biased towards Nationalists and could not command cross-community support."We have sought earnestly to engage in this process to deliver a document which everyone can support and ascribe to," said a DUP spokesman. "Over time it has become increasingly apparent that there are people on the forum who have no interest in such an approach."They want to use this exercise as a means of advancing their special interests without regard to what the people of Northern Ireland as a whole need or want from a bill of rights."The process has therefore been corrupted, and the far-left wish list that has been produced as a consequence is doomed to failure."Ironically the only group to join the DUP in boycotting the launch of the Bill of Rights proposals this week was the Catholic Church.Catholic Church spokesman Father Tim Bartlett said he had chosen to stay away from the launch of the proposals in protest at the forum's failure to address the controversial issue of abortion.Along with the DUP, the Catholic Church had argued for a clause to be added to the final report stating that the life of a child begins at conception, rather than at birth.While the SDLP had supported the inclusion of the clause, Sinn Fein, Alliance and the Ulster Unionist Party had abstained, meaning it will not now be included in the final Bill of Rights legislation.The proposals are expected to be handed over to Secretary of State Shaun Woodward in December, who will then make a decision on the final content of the new bill.