Creating a law concerning abortion is a vexed issue in Ireland, where the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act was passed last summer, while the Catholic Church objected. Future battles over what the law really says will determine what it means So Ireland finally has an abortion law. For those who remember the early 1980s and the civil strife generated then by the successful effort of campaigners to include a “pro-life” amendment in the country’s constitution, it is hard to credit how little fuss there has been this time around: no government has fallen; few crowds have gathered (the occasional vigil excepted); the Supreme Court has stayed safely above the fray. While the ethical dilemmas remain the same as they were then, it is Ireland that has changed around them.