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.

The latest in a long line of victims in our great, unending culture war — a young immigrant woman who can barely speak English and was pregnant because she was raped — was denied an abortion but the baby was delivered by caesarean section so very prematurely that the child’s future and viability are in question. The impact of this intervention on the mental and emotional security of the women can hardly be imagined. This conclusion, if it can even be described as that, is not satisfactory much less humane from any standpoint. It cannot have been the intention of our legislators to put such an appalling set of events in train.

It points though to the statement yesterday from from Jan O’Sullivan, the education minister, who said the legislation was “the best possible” under the circumstances. Advocates at either edge of the debate will challenge that but, in a deeply polarised society, it is hard to see how anything more radical — or limiting— might have been enacted.

That legislation has already been the focus of stern criticism from the UN Human Rights Committee. Though that committee does not have the same powers as the ECHR, and its findings are generally regarded as “guidelines” to governments, more political than legal, it is hugely influential. Therefore its concerns, concerns echoed in Ireland’s medical community yesterday, around how abortion rights in rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormalities cases are provided for in our legislation cannot be ignored for ever, maybe not even for another 30 years. They will be, however, ignored for the lifetime of this Government and even if that is far less than satisfactory it may be, regretfully, understandable.

Ms O’Sullivan said yesterday that she believes the constitutional ban on abortion should be revisited by a future government even if that means yet another battle-lines-drawn referendum. It is hard to disagree with that assessment unless we are prepared to permanently force a small number of women into the most dreadful situations on a regular basis. There is too the great hypocrisy that we are happy to export the problem but not deal with it directly. Tragically this issue remains far from resolved.