It is not easy to find an issue on which Northern Ireland's male politicians can agree. Last week's debate at Stormont enabled them to express a rare consensus on a motion expressing the Assembly's opposition to 'the extension of the Abortion Act (1967) to Northern Ireland'.

The motion was proposed by the Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party and supported by the SDLP, Sinn Fein, the Ulster Unionist Party and Alliance. Only David Ervine of the Progressive Unionist Party opposed it, on the grounds that women have a right to control their own bodies.

Words such as 'legalised carnage' and 'butchery' were used. Dr Joseph Hendron of the SDLP said 'the most vulnerable person in our society is the unborn child'. On a day when the UFF had threatened to shoot anybody seen attacking a Protestant house and there were reports of more 'punishment beatings' by paramilitaries, many vulnerable people were concerned by more immediate dangers.

Women members of the Assembly challenged the male consensus. Joan Carson of the UUP pointed out the motion would make no difference to the 2,000 women a year who travel to Britain from Northern Ireland to have their pregnancies terminated.

The Women's Coalition proposed the issue should be referred to the Assembly's Health Committee, which should take evidence from doctors, lawyers and other experts. It was defeated by 43 votes to 15.

Peter Mandelson must have breathed a sigh of relief. Devolution means any decision to deal with Northern Ireland's highly ambiguous law on abortion now rests with the Assembly. In recent years there has been a demand that the Government should provide clarification. In 1993, a Westminster parliamentary committee conceded the legal situation is 'so uncertain that it violates international standards of human rights'.

Unlike in the Irish Republic, abortion is permitted in Northern Ireland in cases where there is a substantial threat to the life or wellbeing of the mother, severe foetal abnormality or when the pregnancy is the result of incest or rape. Official figures show 77 medical abortions were carried out in Northern Ireland in l998. But availability varies from hospital to hospital, dependent often on the views of individual consultants.

In a 1992 survey one gynaecologist said he would be prepared to terminate a pregnancy resulting from rape, but not on the grounds of foetal abnormality. Another would grant an abortion for foetal handicap but not for rape.

A more recent inquiry revealed 78 per cent of Northern Ireland's family doctors would like the legal situation clarified. Over 40 per cent said they had referred women facing a crisis pregnancy to a clinic in Britain or would be prepared to do so, while 22 per cent said abortion should remain illegal in Northern Ireland.

As the demand for change has grown, the debate has become more vicious. Family planning clinics offering referral to Britain have been picketed and demonstrators have gathered outside the homes of counsellors. Last summer the Ulster Pregnancy Advisory Association was force to close its clinic in Belfast. Mo Mowlam, Peter Mandelson's predecessor, expressed guarded support for the clinic but was reluctant to get involved, citing the fragility of the peace process as her reason.

The human reality behind this debate is that 2,000 women from Northern Ireland are forced to go to mainland Britain each year to have pregnancies terminated. Pro-Choice groups point out it is more difficult for poorer women to pay for transport and for an abortion in a private clinic.

Such experiences did not receive much attention in the expressions of high morality in the Assembly. Here is one young woman's story. Margaret was 16 when she became pregnant. Her mother was in hospital being treated for breast cancer. Her grandmother accompanied her to London to have an abortion. Margaret wrote: 'It was very frightening. Neither of us had been out of Northern Ireland before. But everybody at the clinic was very nice, and the man who owned the boarding house let me use my nebuliser and did not charge me extra for the electricity.'