We'll have what they're having

We posted yesterday about the narrow rejection by the voters of Corsica of the possibility of somewhat greater autonomy from Paris, and noted the analogy with the preference of a small, but perhaps growing, number of residents of Northern Ireland for full integration with the UK as opposed to a greater measure of self-rule, since much of the current political crisis in Unionism relates to how to work within the new self-rule institutions. But full integration with the UK would come with its own complications.

One springs to mind upon seeing this BBC story: the little known fact (outside Ireland) that getting an abortion is just as difficult in Northern Ireland as it is in the Republic. The Republic's travails with abortion legislation are fairly well-known, having attracted the attention of pro-life groups in the US in several heated constitutional debates. The current position regarding abortion in the Republic is a confusing amalgam of 19th century UK legislation and a pro-life amendment to the Constitution that was intended to strengthen the inherited legislative ban but ended up (as was predicted when the amendment was being voted upon) weakening it. In particular, the Republic now has a "health" exception to the ban on abortion, which the courts have read as including the mental health of the mother.

This is all of intense interest to the legal eagles, but it doesn't actually change the position on the ground for a woman with an unwanted pregnancy, who must travel to a clinic in the Britain. Which in fact is exactly the position in Northern Ireland, which is after all, in the UK. But the landmark legislation legalising abortion in England and Wales was passed in 1967, when Northern Ireland had its own parliament, and one point of convergence amidst the general sectarian tensions was the view that NI should not have legal abortion. Of course, medically necessary abortions can be performed, which leaves a substantial grey area, and the BBC story concerns a legal attempt to have this grey area codified. But the subtext, which pro-life groups understand, and pro-choice groups disengenuously deny, was an attempt to get the 1967 legislation extended to NI.

So we can think of at least two groups who would see downsides to governing NI exactly like every other part of the UK: pro-life groups in the North and in the Republic. That depressing trip by ferry or plane for an English abortion would become a more easily concealed depressing trip by car, bus, or train to somewhere in Northern Ireland. One less sin that could be dumped across the water.