THE Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission set out to make abortions easier to obtain in certain circumstances and has ended up making them harder to obtain in those circumstances.
Before the commission went to the High Court, case law had arguably permitted abortion in instances of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality.
There were hopes that judge Mr Justice Mark Horner would use this to ‘read down’ a more liberal interpretation of the 1861 statute law.
However, as he made clear in his final ruling this week, bringing human rights incompatibility into the frame requires new legislation - which of course Stormont will never pass and Westminster will be reluctant to impose.
So not only has the commission shot itself in the foot but it has undone decades of civil action and lobbying by others. In a grown-up moral quandary like abortion, the adolescent absolutism of a rights argument has proved worse than useless.
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The abortion case has been extremely badly timed for new SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, who is trying to project a modernising tone while his party dwindles down to its conservative core.
As the airwaves filled with political reaction to this week’s High Court ruling, all the SDLP would say in an official statement was: “This is a highly sensitive and very important issue. Until we have considered Justice Horner’s judgment in full we will not be issuing further comment.”
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The trial of Pastor James McConnell for insulting Islam began on UN human rights day, when the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission publishes its annual advice to Stormont and the Secretary of State.
This year’s report had an unusually high-profile launch, with a speech by Channel 4 newsreader Jon Snow. So what does its section on “freedom of religion, belief and expression” have to say?
It cites a UN covenant that bans punishment for “displays of lack of respect for a religion” and “criticism of religious leaders or commentary on religious doctrine and tenets of faith”… then demands that Stormont abolish the archaic common law offence of blasphemy.
In other words, nobody should be put on trial for insulting Christians. This is the sort of thing that keeps the Daily Mail in business.
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Writing exclusively for the Irish News on the victims issue, secretary of state Theresa Villiers said the British government has been “far more open than any of the paramilitary groups that operated during the Troubles.”
While this may be true, it glides over the point that paramilitary groups are not the yardstick by which a government’s conduct should be judged.
However, neither Sinn Fein nor its proxies can make this point, as their entire world-view is premised on equating a paramilitary group with a government. So both sides are deadlocked in qualified silence, which is exactly how they like it.
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A short-lived student sit-in at Queen’s University Belfast was backed by SDLP, Sinn Fein and Green Party MLAs, who supported the protesters' call for the university to divest from fossil fuels.
They should all have looked closer to home. Queen’s has an ethical investment policy that it keeps under constant review but no such concerns apply to Stormont’s lavishly-funded pension scheme.
In 2011, that scheme made headlines for investing in the nuclear weapons industry.
A follow-up report by The Detail website discovered the scheme was also investing in a South African coal-mining company that had previously had its licence suspended for polluting a UNESCO world heritage site.
No Stormont action on this has since been reported.
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Public sector union Nipsa has rejected the Fresh Start agreement - and organised protests against it - on the grounds that it is “not good for Nipsa members, their families and wider society”.
The union’s first stated objection is that civil service jobs are being lost through the agreement’s voluntary exit scheme.
However, as there is a queue of Nipsa members wanting to join that scheme, the only objection their union can have to it is to the erosion of its own power base.
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Sinn Fein has deselected Fermanagh MLA Phil Flanagan, who will not now stand at the next Stormont election.
Journalists and commentators have expressed surprise at this, given Flanagan’s high profile on social media - then explained it by his occasionally clownish persona on social media.
However, Sinn Fein has not deselected Tyrone MLA Barry McElduff, who has just published a book promoting his clownish online persona.
So something else is going on and while it is not clear what this is, it is clear that journalists and commentators need to spend less time on social media.
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In a double first for female emancipation, women in Saudi Arabia have been allowed to run and vote for local councils - the only elected bodies in the theocratic kingdom.
However, only 0.6 per cent of successful candidates were women and one third of all seats were still appointed by the absolute monarch.
This is uncannily like the system proposed by the Women’s Coalition in 2005, when it wanted one third of local councillors to be appointed after 0.0 per cent of successful candidates were from the Women’s Coalition.
newton@irishnews.com
