The united front against extending British abortion law to the North is a continuation of a long tradition, writes Fionnuala O Connor
SINCE AGREEMENT across unionist-nationalist lines is famously rare in Northern Ireland, the innocent outsider might think any example worth celebration. And if you are of a certain mind it is marvellous that the Catholic Church and the Orange Order made an identical plea to Westminster recently - to keep British abortion provision to Britain, far enough away so that the (approximately) 1,400 women a year who want to avail of it will go on having to pay for travel, a fee to a clinic and accommodation, on top of any angst instilled by upbringing and the prevailing public discourse. Not to mention the strain of facing work and an unknowing family, perhaps within hours of an operation.
But few could be surprised that Catholic bishops and the grandees of the Orange Order agree on social morality. Though they might have been puzzled that the bishops underlined their case by suggesting to MPs that they could damage the peace process by giving Northern women the same rights as those in Britain. Their lordships asked Westminster to avoid "intruding on the carefully negotiated settlement of political aspiration, representative participation and human rights". The major shocker was that Peter Robinson and Gerry Adams, who can agree about little else, put their names side by side to an anti-abortion letter addressed to every MP - with the leaders of the Ulster Unionists and SDLP, Sir Reg Empey and Mark Durkan, as co-signatories.
Not that the four advertised the fact when their joint letter whizzed off last May.
The letter served one purpose three signatories must have disliked. But as all four intended, it supported the argument by Gordon Brown's business managers in Westminster (on October 22nd) that MPs should acknowledge Northern social conservatism by dropping the proposal - an amendment to a Bill on fertility and stem-cell research - to at last extend British legislation on abortion.
MPs sympathetic to Northern women buckled, the bolshie Diane Abbott stepped up to champion it and plead British rights for British citizens. But a timetable fix pushed the Northern Ireland amendment off the table.
Blocking it fulfilled the Brown side of what many suspect was a bargain with the DUP, whose nine votes won him a vote in May (on his ill-fated proposal that police should be able to hold arrested people for 42 days). Because it mattered to him at the time, it gave the DUP an intoxicating taste for being wooed and the sense - probably mistaken - that a prolonged Brown twilight and subsequent hung parliament would make their votes crucial over a lasting period.
Shared social conservatism is a Northern fixture, dreary steeple or august spire depending on your point of view, that ensures the dictates of religious fundamentalism will remain dominant no matter how church pews empty. It looks as though a woman's freedom to choose between pregnancy and abortion may remain the last taboo. One of the most religious DUP front-rankers, the former Ulster Unionist Jeffrey Donaldson, warned of a "constitutional upset" if the British law should be extended to Northern Ireland. Among the small embattled lobby, largely female, which regroups when it gets new wind every decade or so, some note that Donaldson and other anti-gay rights campaigners refrained from prophesying constitutional crisis when British law made civil partnerships possible in the North. They did not like it, but it happened. Not so with abortion.
Somewhat like the situation in the Republic, Northern hospitals do carry out abortions. But what criteria medical personnel use and how often remains unclear. Department of Health guidelines supposedly clarifying when abortion is allowable finally emerged last year and were promptly dismissed by an almost unanimous Assembly. The tone suggested their fault was that they might have made it easier to obtain a free abortion nearer home.
Northern law dates from 1945, permitting termination only if the life of the pregnant woman is threatened or her long-term health is endangered. The average woman or girl distressed by a pregnancy cannot find a GP to refer them to a Northern hospital. Some GPs phone the Family Planning Association (FPA) to ask for advice. Increasingly often, the FPA hear that cheap flights to Barcelona or Amsterdam are becoming an alternative to costly London clinics. They are equally worried about callers who ask for reassurance, which they cannot give, on pills advertised as abortifacients and available to buy on the internet.
But by sleight of hand in Westminster, in the North at the behest of leaders of church and what passes for state, it has again been agreed that women should continue to take their problem to England or abroad, out of sight and mind. As happens across the Border, though there at least debate has torn society in successive referendums. In Northern Ireland we do things differently - through offstage fixes, and at the stroke of a pen.