Opinion

Fionnuala O Connor: Putting abortion back into the political game during this crisis is hard to fathom

Anti-abortion campaigners outside Stormont last November
Anti-abortion campaigners outside Stormont last November Anti-abortion campaigners outside Stormont last November

In the midst of a frightening crisis, at the very moment described as the likely beginning of the likely worst phase, the north’s embattled health minister chose to put abortion legislation here back into the political game.

A humane person without the edge and aggression of others, why would Robin Swann do that?

READ MORE: Patrick Murphy: After this crisis we need a new type of society otherwise our sacrifices will have been in vainOpens in new window ]

By the time you read this the decision may have already been made. The executive may have made it by the skin of its teeth; the Northern Ireland Office may have shown some resolve. In a week when Conor Murphy, Sinn Féin’s intelligent finance minister, clearly over-reached - and prematurely announced a joint order from China with Dublin that hadn’t been tied down and signed - this administration is already stretched beyond pretence at unity.

The DUP may want to keep pretending they can turn back the British parliamentary decision that finally gave this part of the UK legal abortion provision. It will not suit their long-term aim of growing beyond their fundamentalist hardcore. And the last thing the Stormont executive needed now was a conscience vote, to be agonised over by people already at the pin of their collars.

Pregnant women and girls whose pregnancies are terrifying not joyful are watching days tick by. If they lived across the border, if they could travel to Britain, if they could trust medication bought online, two pills taken at home could lift the dread. Too many ‘ifs’ there. The preaching of righteous anti-abortionists ignores the pain of those corralled into a backward place at the worst of times.

Fionnuala O Connor
Fionnuala O Connor Fionnuala O Connor

At such moments, uncertainty encourages backward moves, sometimes out of honest though often cowardly caution. If Britain had allowed both those tablets to be taken at home without somersaulting on the decision, then reversing it, officials might have stiffened the ministerial spine rather than discouraging him.

Alliance 4Choice had called on Swann on March 30, little more than a crowded week ago, to make allowances for abnormal circumstances, introduce remote consultation and no criminalisation of those providing remote care, to ‘allow patients to take both medications in the safety of their own homes and recognise there is no safe way to access abortion in England during the crisis.’ Skilled managers of information might have turned away for a moment from managing the humbling of Conor Murphy to say to Swann oh come on, let’s make this small move and be done with it.

More ‘ifs’ there; Stormont civil servants took a pasting in the RHI report. Minute-ing of every tiny decision may not have survived into crisis-time. Reluctance to give honest advice has probably never gone away.

The mystifying Swann move came with newspapers and broadcasting stretched to adequately cover the virus updates, never mind trying to decipher political moves. It took the tireless, campaigning freelance Amanda Ferguson to point up what looked like determination to stall, perhaps even attempt reversal of abortion regulations not even a week in theoretical existence.

Ferguson, who reaped the ritual poisonous abuse of feminists in social media from the usual sources, noted Alliance MP and deputy leader Stephen Farry tweeting a forceful relaying of Alliance for Choice’s bewildered and angry message that the NIO was still telling women to call for advice on travelling. It was a matter for the health department, Farry insisted, not for the executive.

Ferguson reported Swann facing questions in the Stormont health committee led by Alliance’s Paula Bradshaw and People before Profit’s Gerry Carroll, backed by Sinn Féin’s Orlaithí Flynn. The minister told them this was ‘a cross-cutting sensitive issue in Northern Ireland’ and ‘not one solely for health’. A paper would go to the executive the following day. After that Ferguson went from health to executive and back in search of a decision.

With the worst job in the executive, the one nobody else wanted, Robin Swann needs all the support he can get. May he deserve it.