The manoeuvre that prevented a vote on extending the Abortion Act has dragged law in the North even deeper into disrepute.

The Government, in collaboration with the DUP and with the connivance of the Sinn Fein, Ulster Unionist and SDLP leaderships, has sought to park the issue in the twilight zone.

Health professionals and women with crisis pregnancies must continue to stumble in a murk created by law-makers. Or rather, by those whose job it is to make law but who lack the gumption to do it. It may be there is now no way forward but through organising medical abortions here and inviting prosecution.

It is commonly said that the law on abortion here is confused. But it is not the law that is confused. The confusion arises from political cowardice in face of the law.

The case law in Northern Ireland is based on the Bourne ruling. This refers to the 1939 prosecution of a doctor who had performed an abortion for a suicidal 14-year-old who became pregnant from gang rape. He was acquitted on the basis that continuation of the pregnancy would have left the girl “a physical or mental wreck”.

The 1967 Abortion Act can be understood as formalising and codifying the Bourne ruling and providing a system of regulation — laying down a time limit, requiring the approval of two doctors for each termination, etc. The North, self-advertised as a pious enclave of abortion-free purity, was exempted from the provisions of the Act.

But abortion in the North didn’t go away. In a cluster of cases between 1993 and 1995, the courts laid down parameters.

The K case, echoing Bourne, involved a 14-year-old threatening suicide and self-induced abortion: the High Court ruled an abortion legal because “to allow the pregnancy to continue to full term would result in [her] being a physical and mental wreck”.

In the A case, the court ruled that a severely mentally disabled woman could have a abortion. In the case of SJB, a minor, judgment was given for an abortion on ground of a probable risk to the physical or mental health, well-being or life of the girl. Similarly, clearance was given for an abortion for CH, a mentally disturbed 16-year-old.

These cases made clear that abortion in the North was legal in far more instances than was generally supposed. But local politicians continued to refuse to deal with the fact.

In June 2000, the Stormont Assembly debated extension of the 1967 Act. A move by the Women’s Coalition to refer the question to the Health Committee was supported by Sinn Fein but defeated 43-15. The Family Planning Association (FPA) and pro-choice campaigners then urged Health Minister Bairbre de Brun of Sinn Fein at least to issue guidelines telling medical practitioners what rules they could or should follow. When Ms de Brun wouldn’t budge, the FPA went to court for an order instructing her to move.

In July 2003, the High Court refused the FPA application, commenting that “the issuing of guidelines will not resolve these difficulties”. In other words, this was a matter for politicians, not judges, to clear up.

In November the following year, the Appeal Court varied this ruling by asking the Department to “inquire into the adequacy of termination of pregnancy services ... and [issue] appropriate guidance.”

It wasn’t until January last year that draft guidelines were published. These, in effect, restated Bourne in declaring that abortion was legal when a woman’s mental or physical health was in “grave” danger of “serious and permanent damage”.

Last autumn, the Assembly rejected this formulation as too permissive. So, redrafted guidelines were issued this year, again setting out the legal position arising from Bourne and confirmed in the 1993-1995 rulings. One addition was a warning to doctors that they’d be liable to life imprisonment if they carried out abortions subsequently ruled as having been outside the legal parameters. These guidelines, too, have been rejected as inadequate by some (mainly Catholic) “pro-lifers”.

It was against this background that Labour backbencher Emily Thornbury tabled a Commons amendment in May to bring clarity to the position by extending the 1967 Act. She withdrew her amendment the night before its scheduled debate after being told by Gordon Brown, personally, that if she pressed the issue she’d endanger the peace process.

It was this same amendment, re-submitted by Diane Abbot, which yesterday fell victim to New Labour procedural cynicism.

The position we have reached is this: the vast majority of the women who trek across the water for abortions would be legally entitled to terminations here. More than 90% of cases would come squarely within Bourne and the High Court rulings of the 1990s. But of 108 MLAs, only Dawn Purvis and Anna Lo are willing to face this plain fact openly and call for the 1967 Act to be extended to give it expression, and allow the procedure to be carried out on the NHS.

Meantime, among the small number of abortions that are carried out every year in the North are some that are illegal — abortions for foetal abnormality that take place every year are not covered by the relevant rulings.

Women cannot avail of their rights under the law, while our “pro-life” politicians turn blind eye to blatant illegality.

Robinson, Adams, Empey and Durkan should surely be ashamed of themselves. But since they are not, direct action may be all that’s left.