Unionists were right to try to revive Stormont, to block abortion law

The Province will suddenly have some of the most liberal and unrestricted abortion laws in Europe.

Northern Ireland has entered a limbo, in which terminations have been decriminalised before there are regulations as to the circumstances in which an abortion is fully legal.

This limbo will persist until March, when the framework is finalised.

The government says that the existing abortion guidelines will largely still apply with regard to terminations in the Province, and that some other situations will be eligible for abortions in Northern Ireland, such as so-called fatal foetal abnormality.

Meanwhile, the authorities will pay for the costs of women from here who travel to Great Britain for abortions.

The DUP was accused of engaging in a political stunt yesterday with the recall of Stormont, which went nowhere.

But such a stunt was only necessary because the British government has allowed Sinn Fein to collapse the assembly in its sectarian pursuit of an Irish language act.

The DUP has been entirely right to resist such blackmail, which the Ulster Unionists and TUV also opposed — united unionist opposition to such an act, in much the same way that there would be unanimous opposition across nationalist Ireland (and beyond) if a unionist party ever crashed Stormont in pursuit of a cherished political goal.

The other principal culprit in today’s radical liberalisation of the law is the House of Commons, which imposed this grotesque legislation in an attempt to force MLAs to resurrect power sharing. That could only happen by paying the republican ransom.

These are bleak days in local politics, in which a Conservative and Unionist government does nothing to stand up to a party that does not want Northern Ireland to survive.