Abortion judgement in the North makes for frightening reading

Several passages of the judgement in the recent abortion case in the High Court of Northern Ireland make for extraordinary reading.

For example, Mr Justice Horner said that “it is simply impossible to know how the majority of people in Northern Ireland view abortion”, since there has never been a vote of any kind on the matter, and that it was therefore impossible to say that his judgment which permitted abortion in the case of rape, incest and so-called fatal foetal abnormalities was “reflective of the view of the Northern Ireland people”.

However, he did acknowledge evidence that there is no public appetite for a change of the law on this matter and that there is “no political will” to do so.