The Republic of Ireland is a different place to the country it was in 2014. In the last four years, both the ban on same-sex marriage and the total ban on abortion have been repealed through successive referendums, each winning by a large margin.

I had the pleasure of joining some of the guys from Alliance For Choice in Belfast on Saturday, huddled around a phone listening to Returning Officer Barry Ryan read out the official national result. 66.4% of voters made the decision to repeal the 8th Amendment from the Irish Constitution, the foundations of the Republic had no place for the regulation of women’s healthcare.

I’m not ashamed to say that I had my doubts as to whether it would really happen but this is where we are and the women of Ireland can finally be looked after in their own country, not ferried out to England or the Netherlands or wherever. But that isn’t the case for Northern Ireland, where the regulations for abortion were written in the same year that the American Civil War started and remain in effect to this day.

There is no doubt that the focus will now shift north, the lens of the UK and European media is now firmly on the 1861 Offences Against The Persons Act and the disparity between how British women in Northern Ireland are treated in an archaic and cruel manner compared to their counterparts in England, Scotland, Wales, and now in the Republic of Ireland.

I’ve already seen a number of journalists, campaigners etc. from Great Britain calling for a referendum to liberalise the abortion laws here, but we don’t need one nor does the abortion rights movement in Northern Ireland want one. The necessity of referendums to mandate social change in Ireland was facilitated by the inclusion of the definition of marriage as one man and one woman, and the equal right to life for the mother and foetus in the Irish Constitution.

The Constitution can only be changed by way of a public referendum and gives Irish citizens a direct say in how much power they give to the Oireachtas with regards to issues such as voting rights, retaining or abolishing the Seanad, property rights etc. But this quirk has also meant that, with enough support in both the legislature and amongst the public, provisions to control the march of social change can be inserted into the Constitution and bad law can be created, such as the 8th Amendment in 1983.

Northern Ireland doesn’t have a written constitution, nor does the UK have any legal mechanisms by which a referendum has to be considered binding unless a piece of legislation is passed to enshrine the outcome in law. Even then, all it takes is for a change in Government with an opposing agenda to completely undo and overturn a referendum result in the UK.

Besides these points, with the current Schrodinger’s NI Assembly being neither alive nor dead, and an ineffective Secretary of State the UK Government has the obligation and authority to act on issues such as marriage equality and abortion reform. A referendum would be costly, would be divisive, would sap the resources of the women’s sector and in the end the result would be advisory only, with no guarantee that the Government would enable it.

It takes leadership to make a decision on difficult issues, not to farm out the decision to put civil liberties to a public vote as was done in Australia on same-sex marriage. That is an abdication of responsibility and the sign of a weak Government unable to act due to pressure from a handful of Northern Irish MPs.

If you want to know what needs to happen next to make both marriage equality and free, safe, legal abortion a reality in Northern Ireland then speak to the activists and campaigners that have been doing this work for a long time now. Lend us your listening ear.