Abortion And The North

It's easy to assume that attitudes in the North never change, but the "pro-lifers" don't think so, and they're right.
A couple of weeks ago, each of the three main Catholic newspapers in these islands, The Universe, The Catholic Times and The Irish Catholic, carried a full-page advertisement headed, "Without your help the bloodshed will begin again in Northern Ireland."
This wasn't a plea to David Trimble to stop fucking about, but a pitch for money for Precious Life, one of the myriad "pro-life" organisations infesting the land.
The British Government, warns the advert, plans to impose abortion on the North. Tony Blair, Mo Mowlam and 64 Labour MPs are "determined" and "downright militant" on the issue."If they succeed, thousands of Irish babies from both Northern Ireland and Ireland will endure horrible deaths in the years ahead."
But if readers send their spare dosh to Precious Life, "We will save the babies of Northern Ireland".
In fact, the abortion rate in Northern Ireland is in line with the rate in the South which is in line with the rate in Britain. There is no reason to suppose that the extension to the North of the UK 1967 Abortion Act - the key demand of campaigners for choice - would significantly alter these figures. The most likely effect would be to reduce the incidence of late Northern Ireland abortions -significantly higher for Irish women than for British women because of the hassle they have to go through - the need to raise money, arrange travel, devise a cover-story and so forth.
So, even if the crazies' campaign was successful and women in the North remained disadvantaged in relation to women in the rest of the UK, it is unlikely that any "babies" would be "saved".
The notion that Tony Blair and Mo Mowlam are gung-ho for the extension of the Abortion Act is just as far from the truth. Both have voted for extension in the past. But positions adopted in the past have proven a very poor guide to New Labour action in government.
Mowlam has been a disgrace on the abortion issue, not only in refusing to act but in suggesting that Labour MPs who raise the issue are somehow putting peace at risk.
What may have unnerved Precious Life and other advocates of compulsory motherhood is the evidence of a shift in Northern opinion following the pattern of change which has been charted in the South.
On February 17th, the London Independent carried a "readers' interview" with Gerry Adams.Responding to an e-mailed query from a London woman - "Which women's issues do you support?" - Adams volunteered a view on abortion: "A woman's 'right to choose' is an important matter with serious implications for Ireland. Every year... at least 5,000 Irish women travel to Britain for abortions. While not supportive of abortion on demand, our party policy on this issue recognises a range of social and medical circumstances which can give rise to women having abortions, such as where a woman's mental and physical well-being of life is at risk, or in grave danger".
This isn't a clear and detailed policy statement, but the reference to "a range of social and medical circumstances" and risks to "mental and physical well-being" define in broad terms the provisions of the 1967 Act. Put alongside the Progressive Unionist Party's commitment to the extension of the Act, Adams' statement points towards the real reason for the "pro-lifers" alarm.
Adams wouldn t have said what he did in the Independent were he not content that he was broadly reflecting the thinking of Sinn Fein voters.
The reason "pro-lifers" pretend that British politicians plan to "impose" the 1967 Act on the North is that they know the direct opposite is the truth.
British politicians are resisting the demands for abortion reform which are coming from within Northern society and which, increasingly, are reflected in the pronouncements of politicians.
Contrary to Mowlam's claim, a no-holds-barred debate on abortion would be good for the North. It would be divisive, certainly. However, the division would run, not along the line of communal allegience but according to whether we want to enter a new millennium as a modern society shrugging off the old shibboleths, or as a backwater still burdened down with superstition and bigotry and corralling its women in continued oppression.