Abortion should not be just another culture-war ding dong

The overturning of Roe v. Wade is an American story, and a global one. What the hell – it’s asked with some justice – does it have to do with the rest of us? In part because, as is sometimes said, when America sneezes the UK catches a cold. But also because the intoxicated global reaction to what, looked at from one angle, is a narrow point of US constitutional law, shows us something about where we’re at.

As someone generally of the liberal tribe I find myself slightly out of kilter with my natural allies on this subject. I’m as horrified as the next bloke in a ‘this is what a feminist looks like’ T-shirt at the ‘trigger laws’ which at a stroke will curtail women’s bodily autonomy across huge swathes of a supposedly civilised country. That said, it doesn’t seem to me to be so obvious as needs no argument that abortion is an unqualified human right.