Women’s Rights to Reproductive Healthcare: United States

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Milling]

This is a matter for the Home Office but, as I understand it, they keep it under review.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Like many, I feel personally targeted by this attack on women’s bodily autonomy and deeply distressed by the impact it will have on women’s health in the United States. It is in part the consequence of a right-wing Government politicising women’s bodies in the pursuit of so-called culture wars, and I hope the Minister will take note. The ruling also means that whether a woman is pregnant becomes a matter of criminal liability. Therefore, insight into that, through health data, location data, what a woman buys, where she shops and who she visits, may become evidence for the prosecution. Yet that data is freely trafficked by multinational companies. Will the Minister set out how she will address that and the conversations she will have with her American counterparts to prevent that from happening? She looks confused, but this is a real issue for women, who will now be criminalised if they are pregnant and miscarry.

[Amanda Milling]

Let me be clear: I understand the distress about this decision, but it is a matter for the US courts and individual US states. We have no jurisdiction over them. However, we see this as a backwards step and both the Prime Minister and I have been clear about that.