Abortion legislation - Issue is far from being resolved

No other issue is as divisive as abortion. You either, even if reluctantly, regard the procedure as a right or maybe a last option in extreme circumstances. Others regard it, and it seems that they always will, as an abomination — many people consider it an affront to their religious and social beliefs. There may be shades of grey on the issue but the middle ground is hardly less populated on any other issue.

This polarisation, and the honestly-held conservatism of so many Irish people and their public representatives, meant it took 30 years to resolve difficulties around abortion legislation, difficulties made unavoidable, first by an Irish court ruling and later, in December 2010, by a European Court of Human Rights ruling.

It is as tragic as it was inevitable that it has taken a far shorter period of time for that response — the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act — to be tested in the most dramatic way and to be found utterly wanting.