In Westminster yesterday, MPs readied themselves to debate whether abortion law should be devolved to Scotland; part of the process of handing (or grudgingly doling out) the greater powers to Edinburgh agreed to stop Scots voting themselves out of the UK. But Westminster was never likely to support giving Edinburgh control of abortion law.
Why not? Well, British government voices prepared to vote it down, to limit the scope of the Scotland Bill as with proposed tax and welfare measures, to show Edinburgh they can - and in some cases because they think Edinburgh would narrow provision. But shrunken, humiliated Scottish Labour was the most clear-cut about holding the line.
Despite having only a single Westminster MP left, a party statement said in advance they would argue for `a consistent, UK-wide approach', to ensure a woman's right to choose was determined by `robust clinical advice' rather than a `line on a map'.
From this distance those might sound impeccably liberal, even feminist sentiments. Also plain wrong, and quite remarkably ignorant. Is it possible that Scottish Labour in its enfeebled state believes Northern Ireland is no longer part of the UK? Perhaps since the Good Friday Agreement? Although, to be fair, maybe in more than a few heads a stretch of water counts for more than a 'line on a map'.
But it is also entirely possible that in the Great Britain part of the rapidly evolving, post-Scottish referendum Union, many do not know how limited in Northern Ireland, in the matter of abortion provision, is a woman's right to choose.
Leading politicians here, mostly male, join hands across the sectarian divide to block bringing the law into line with that across the sea. The choice for a woman or girl here facing a pregnancy they cannot bear is hard, expensive, possibly dangerous, humiliating.
She can choose to go to a clinic across the water - if she can raise the fare and the fee and accommodation, if she has a credit card, freedom of movement from a bullying partner, the sort of life she can take time out of for 48 hours without anyone noticing. Or she can try to buy pills online for a medical abortion.
Otherwise, she can allow the Precious Life leader, the unelected Bernadette Smyth, assured recently by a judge that her behaviour did not amount to harassment, to speak for her.
Another court is mulling over the Human Rights Commission challenge to Stormont to legalise abortion for rape, incest or serious foetal malformation. (The HRC points to the 802 women and girls who travelled to England and Wales for abortions in 2013.)
And a third judge is considering the case of a woman, whose trial began on June 19, for obtaining internet abortion medication for her daughter. More than 200 people, mostly women, have now signed a letter saying they have done the same thing, for themselves or for another, and challenged police to charge them too.
The offence carries a sentence of up to five years.
The News Letter's Sam McBride, in the course of printing the letter on June 24th, phoned the Public Prosecution Service who referred him to the PSNI. A detective superintendent said abortion was a `very emotive issue'.
The specific circumstances of an incident determined whether or not a crime had been committed and each case `would be investigated on its own merit.' And the public should only take drugs prescribed for them.
Does this mean the PSNI will now investigate the circumstances in which each signatory to the letter `procured and used' abortion medication? The organisers, Alliance for Choice, have been campaigning (including some of the same people throughout) for almost 20 years to have British abortion law extended here.
They should all be prosecuted beside the woman now before the court, AFC say, or the case should be dropped. Over 100 signed a similar open letter in 2013, not one visited by police. They will `hand themselves in' at different police stations over the next weeks and `confess'. In the meantime banners should unfold on Derry's Walls, leaflets will drop through media letter-boxes, pictures and posts will hit social media.
They call demanding consistency from the police and prosecutors `harassing the authorities'. Though it is surely gentle harassment to stand outside police stations declaring `Me too'. Sha Gillespie in Derry says `An injury to one of us is an injury to all. I'm ready to go to jail.' So many judges, so much stress, so much for UK-wide rights.
