Ireland's referendum on abortion last week was not, according to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, a cause for celebration but an occasion for national self-congratulation about the process that led up to it. The vote was the product of an exercise in deliberative democracy that started with a citizens' assembly composed of a representative sample from across society and included lengthy parliamentary committee hearings that heard from a range of experts, including women who had travelled to Britain for abortions.
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