It's so hard to understand just how entrenched the green and orange thing is here until you've spent some time living here I think. I'm not from here originally, but I've been here about 10 years, my thoughts would be (and obviously this is speaking very generally, lots of individuals won't fall into these boxes):
- I don't think either side in NI hates the other. But I do think each side is genuinely terrified of the other getting a stranglehold on governing.
- This is fair. Catholics have seen the discrimination they faced in the past. It's not hypothetical for them, it's (very recent) history.
- Working class unionists have in some ways been the big losers of the peace process. They had a stranglehold on a lot of industry, but now employers are (rightly) expected to employ from both sides of the fence and those industries are struggling too. There isn't a culture of education in those communities (because there was no need in the past) and so whole generations are floundering. They have simultaneously seen working class nationalists prospering post peace process.
- If either side gained significant control, the other would (justifiably in my view) think "That's it, we're fucked". And I'm not talking in terms of whether NI is part of the UK or ROI, I'm talking in terms of employment, housing, funding etc.
- So people don't necessarily vote for the DUP or Sinn Fein, they vote against the other. Both the DUP and SF have been very very skillful (and not in the slightest bit subtle) in cultivating this attitude.
- Obviously, reproductive rights are just one issue that people vote on. Even as a pro choice woman in my child baring years, it's not the first issue on my list of reasons to vote for a candidate or party, so I can't expect it to be on others'. That doesn't mean I don't care deeply.
- SF is the most obviously pro choice party here, but there is the oh so small issue of their connection to the IRA and which means many will never ever vote for them, regardless of anything else (I'll happily declare myself in this category). (Oh, and Mary Lou would not cause a ruckus in Westminster since a) she's from Dublin and thus unlikely to run for a seat in the UK and b) wouldn't take her seat as part of SF's abstentionist policy, but I suspect you know that asdou.)
Basically, life in NI was very hard for a very long time in a way that those of us who didn't grow up here during the Troubles just can't understand. It has unsurprisingly left the place a bit fucked up, and actually I think NI should be really really proud of how it's fighting to progress, and to grow. It is a fantastic place to live and I would hate to leave.
Expecting NI to legislate for abortion is just too big a step right now. It just is, there's too much else going on, it's too emotional, everything is too fraught as it is.
Westminster could step in. It would be the humane thing to do.
Patronising comments about how women in NI should do something about the laws (oh gee, why didn't we think of that), or stop voting for the DUP (see above) don't help. Nor do comments about how NI should "get over itself" (as I've seen on here before) - it's basically a whole country with trauma.
What would help, is talking about how British and Irish women living in NI don't have access to healthcare that their sisters in the rest of the UK and Ireland do. Lobbying Westminster to step up. Demystifying abortion (seriously, it's just not talked about here, ever). Patronising shite about how NI women bring this on themselves and that it was GB who can take responsibility for repealing the 8th in ROI helps absolutely no one and completely ignores the political and historical reality in NI.