The emergence of evidence last week that at least one back-street abortionist has been plying her trade in Dublin's immigrant community is a sad reminder both of unfinished business for "modern" Ireland and of a brutal past we thought we had put behind us.
And it gives the lie to the simple stereotype of asylum-seeker citizenship tourists - to date 40 have sought and received temporary travel papers from the Department of Justice to travel to Britain for abortions.
How many more, panicked by an unwanted pregnancy, frightened, isolated, and far from home in a society that gave every sign of wanting rid of them, rang that number for "Gynaecological Services"? And when they made their way into that Dublin 7 flat, clutching €500, did they flinch at the primitive instruments that would be used on their bodies? And did they then, perhaps, make an agonising prayer to their God for forgiveness for the "choice" they had made?
In 2002, 6,490 Irish women made that choice, according to the British authorities, bringing to 105,000 the number who have had abortions in Britain since 1980. The real figure may well be much higher before our authorities take measures to make that choice a real one. That means providing the resources for comprehensive back-up health services and childcare, multilingual, widely-available education on the options, and realistic income support for expectant mothers. It means creating a society that welcomes rather than ostracises new arrivals, whether babies or asylum seekers.
And it means finding the political courage to enact legislation to give effect in this State to the limited constitutional right to abortion in the "X" case.
In rejecting the case of Ms Thi-No Vo against the French government over the inadvertent abortion of her unborn child, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) last Thursday reaffirmed an important principle in its jurisprudence - one size does not fit all. The French courts had held that the foetus had no rights apart from its mother and the ECHR backed their right to arrive at that decision.
The ECHR accepted that on issues like the Vo case, on which there is no clear Europe-wide consensus, states must have a discretion, or "margin of appreciation", in interpreting fundamental rights. And, if states are free to chose which path to take, is there not then an onus on them precisely to chose? This State has decided to pass the buck to others to solve what are internal problems with the horrific consequences exposed in our back streets last week.