Legal Rights to Access Abortion

Chris Green Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

It is very difficult. [Interruption.] The hon. Member knows that we will disagree but, fundamentally, the fact that we can have this debate is the most important thing. I have to move on because we just will not agree, but it is important that everybody’s views are heard.

A 15-year-old girl was investigated by the police after a stillbirth at 28 weeks and accused of having an illegal abortion. Her phone and laptop were confiscated during her GCSE exams and she was driven to self-harm by the year-long investigation. Those are moments in a person’s life—in a woman’s life—that have been really impacted. The investigation concluded only when the coroner found that the pregnancy had ended as a result of natural causes. Imagine someone going through that while going through their GCSEs, with their whole life ahead of them.

This is the reality of criminalisation for the women investigated: their lives are being picked apart, they are being treated like criminals and it causes huge disruption. They do not feel safe in accessing medical services and their trust in the health service is undermined. These are often vulnerable women—even children—in desperate situations and with complicated medical histories or mental health problems. Because of the approach of the Crown Prosecution Service, rather than being provided with support in the moment these women face a terrifying journey of criminalisation.

We talk about choice when it comes to abortion, but those who are currently empowered to make choices are not the women who need the services but the police, who chose to investigate, and the CPS, which decides to prosecute. The current law takes fundamental decisions about an individual’s healthcare and hands it to the state. What is most concerning is that the law as it stands could be overturned by the Government of the day without a vote in Parliament.

This is where we perhaps need to look at the position of the current Cabinet and their views on a woman’s ability to access reproductive healthcare, because we can see that the issue is far from settled. I just want to point this out for the record. The Prime Minister has abstained on all votes relating to abortion in England since becoming an MP. That includes the votes on buffer zones and early medical abortion at home—the telemedicine we saw this year.

The Chancellor has been vocal about his desire to halve the time limit in which women can have abortions from 24 weeks to 12 weeks, even breaking the Whip. We say it is a matter of conscience, so I understand. The Home Secretary also voted against telemedicine being made permanent and the legal enforcement of buffer zones in 2022. We need to think about these views. It is right that Caitlin and the more than 150,000 other signatories to the petition are concerned, because if we look at our Parliament, we see that there is a risk of it happening. I totally understand Caitlin’s point of view.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

If this legal right to an abortion were to be introduced, would it allow a legal right to a sex-selective abortion as well?

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I do not read it like that. I think there is a better way forward. That is my personal opinion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Green]

The motivation would be determined in advance?

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I do not see it that way, but I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing up that viewpoint.

It is incredibly important that we do not shy away from these debates. If there is something we can learn from the United States, it is how not to discuss women’s reproductive health. We cannot allow something so important to become yet another salvo in the culture war. This is down to us. Women deserve much better. I would like to end on that note, and I would like to thank everybody for their interventions. It is very important that we discuss the way forward. Decriminalisation is very, very important, because no woman or young girl should feel worry about their future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

Well, there was an Act. The right hon. Gentleman is shouting—I guess he missed out on the debates we had on this issue in 2019, when this place did indeed pass legislation. That is a very interesting mechanism for this Bill of Rights. It is why this Bill could be the right vehicle and why a human rights perspective is important. Those of us who believe the time has come to say that abortion is healthcare and to remove the criminal element recognise that removing the criminal element requires us to replace it with an alternative foundation for those rights. Those of us who believe we should make abortion a human right in this country argue that a human rights perspective should be that alternative. We see Northern Ireland, where that has now happened, as an opportunity to learn from that.

Let me preface my statement by saying that just because we have a human right to abortion in Northern Ireland does not mean, as yet, that we have satisfactory legal, local and safe abortion services. Those who are hostile to abortion have used their position to prevent access. However, what is different and so powerful about having that human rights approach is that it is the Secretary of State who has to drive change in Northern Ireland, because he has to defend the human rights of women in Northern Ireland as a reflection of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women protocol.

[Chris Green]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Stella Creasy]

I will happily give way, but before I do, I will just clarify for the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) that changing the foundation of that legislation would not change the regulations as to whether sex-selective abortion would ever be legal or the time limits. It would simply be about the fundamental principle. Right now, his female constituents do not have a right to an abortion. They may be able to go and request one, but somebody else makes that decision.

[Chris Green]

I think the hon. Lady does clarify the point to a certain extent, but in that clarification she also highlights that some people—women, families—choose to have a sex-selective abortion, which is in contrast to the argument being made about abortion necessarily always being about healthcare. There are other factors as well.

[Stella Creasy]

I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that if he is dealing with families where that is a possibility, prosecuting a woman who is being asked to have a sex-selective abortion, rather than supporting her or recognising what is happening, is not the way forward. The cases set out so powerfully by my hon. Friend the Member for Gower show why decriminalisation is a very live issue. Although it is the 21st century, this country is still prosecuting women for having miscarriages and threatening them with investigation for a healthcare issue. Rather than recognising what other pressures might be in their lives and supporting them, we are criminalising those women, as women were criminalised in the 1800s with the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. I wager that the hon. Gentleman would not want to be on the side of arguing that a piece of legislation that put abortion at the same level as setting fire to this place or indeed murder would be the right way forward.

Right now, the penalty under that legislation is lifetime imprisonment. There may be some people who are comfortable with that, but many of us, who believe that when a woman is seeking healthcare, she deserves our support, compassion and tolerance, are not. For those of us who believe that we should be equals under the law, the question is whether the hon. Gentleman would accept being denied the basic right to decide what happens to his body in a particular circumstance, and for that decision to be taken by two other people who could give him that option only if they agreed that he would go mad or lose his life if he did not have it. I wager that he would not find that acceptable if it was perhaps about having a vasectomy.