Editorial: Protesters are in effect free across the UK to celebrate Hamas, while anti abortion protest limits get ever more restrictive

In 2016 a woman in Northern Ireland aged 21 was given a suspended jail term for a self-induced abortion.

This emerged during a Stormont election, and the sentence was widely condemned by prospective MLAs. Yet barely a candidate advocated abortion on demand in NI, no matter how early in the pregnancy. Stormont then even rejected terminations in cases of fatal foetal abnormality, when polls showed big public support for such minor change.

The next year Sinn Fein brought down Stormont and soon Westminster used abortion law to punish unionists. Why unionists? Because it was unionist MLAs who were most likely to oppose reform (the nationalist SDLP was once also anti).

Now NI has abortion laws that are among the most liberal (if that be the word – slack is another) in western Europe. Tory ministers wore their support for imposing abortion on NI as a sign of how enlightened they were compared to unionists. This has all happened when in America much of the public mood is turning against abortion, where millions of people think that the grisly reality of termination has been disguised for too long by language such as 'reproductive rights'.

Scotland's parliament is scrutinising laws to outlaw protests within 200 metres of abortion facilities. NI already has a variation on such a ban. In Birmingham this year a Catholic woman was arrested for silently praying outside an abortion clinic.

Across the UK there have been weeks of Islamist (subtly pro Hamas) protests in the aftermath of the worst slaughter of Jews since the holocaust. You could hardly get a clearer illustration of moral and political confusion in Britain than the fact that amidst such displays of hatred laws have been passed or are being passed to stop protests against the ending of a life in the womb outside the building where it is happening.