Induced Abortion

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) on securing the debate. She made a point of saying at the beginning of her speech that she felt that there was a climate of fear around discussing abortion, and that some people did not feel that it was appropriate for it to be discussed in the House. I hope that she is not including me in that. I believe in the primacy of the Chamber. It seems to me vital that the Chamber is the place where we discuss issues of life and death, and war and peace. I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), and for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott), on their excellent and thoughtful speeches.

I open my remarks in a way that is unusual for me—by quoting a Conservative Front Bencher in another place. Earl Howe, the Health Minister in the House of Lords, said this month, in response to the Secretary of State’s remarks, that

“my right honourable friend is entitled to express his long-held personal view, which he did the other day...however, successive Governments have taken the view that they should rest on the evidence. There is currently no call from the main medical bodies for a review of the Act in relation to time limits, and the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists support that view…This is a highly sensitive issue on which the Government have, as I indicated, traditionally been led by the science and the medical profession, and I think that we should bear that principle very closely in mind.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 October 2012; Vol. 739, c. 1130.]

For me, at the heart of this debate is the scientific and medical evidence. I do not understand why proponents of the anti-abortion case insist on saying that the science and medicine have changed when we know that in 2007 the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology held an inquiry on scientific developments and found that

“while survival rates at 24 weeks and over have improved they have not done so below that gestational point…we have seen no good evidence to suggest that foetal viability has improved significantly since the abortion time limit was last set, and seen some good evidence to suggest that it has not.”

The BMA supports that position.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

I have to make progress. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare support that position. There is no medical and scientific case for the position that some Government Members are trying to prosecute.

Everyone is entitled to their ethical and religious views on this issue. For Labour Members, abortion has traditionally been a conscience matter, and I respect other people’s consciences on this issue. However, it is not right to denigrate doctors, scientists, nurses and other medical practitioners. It is not right to say, as some hon. Members have said, that the royal colleges are saying these things because they make their money out of abortions. It is not right to denigrate medical practitioners. It is not right to talk about women being coerced into having abortions. It ought to be possible to have a serious argument about the ethical issues without denigrating nurses, doctors and other medical practitioners who have devoted their lives to the reproductive welfare of women.

The question of Northern Ireland has come up. The issues in relation to Northern Ireland are entirely a matter for the people of Northern Ireland, but let me just say this. I congratulate Marie Stopes on opening the clinic in Belfast. I want to give my personal support to brave women, such as Dawn Purvis, who have campaigned on this issue. I give my personal support to those women in Northern Ireland who continue to believe that it cannot be right that women in one part of the British isles do not have the human rights that other women in the Union have.

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

I have to make progress.

[Hon. Members]

Give way!

[Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Ms Abbott]

We have heard the concerns about high levels of abortions and repeat abortions. Let me say from the Opposition side of the Chamber that we all share those concerns. Every abortion is a tragedy. I think that we would all in this Chamber want levels of abortions to come down, but we do not fairly bring down levels of abortions by restricting women’s right to choose. As the royal colleges have pointed out, the way to bring down levels of abortions is to recognise that abortions are largely about unintended pregnancy. What is needed is better work on access to contraception and better sexual health education in schools, and, if I may say so—this is a personal view—more needs to be done to fight the objectification and sexualisation of women in society. Of course we want to bring down abortion levels and levels of unintended pregnancy, but that is done through working in schools and working with young women, through sexual health care, and by fighting, as I said, the sexualisation of women, of which we see far too much.

As I said, of course we respect people’s consciences on this issue, but we do not want, and there is no evidence that British women want, the importing of the American politicisation of abortion to this country. We have only to look across the Atlantic to see politicians trying to outbid one another in the ferocity of their opposition to women’s right to choose, to see the attacks on doctors who work in these clinics, and to see candidates for office claiming that abortion as a consequence of women being raped is not an issue because there are things about a woman’s body that kick in and prevent her from getting pregnant as a result of rape—American politicians revealing their complete ignorance of women’s reproductive health.

Sadly, that is inching into this country. There are prayer vigils outside abortion clinics. There are leaflets claiming that abortion leads to breast cancer and infertility. There is work on college campuses. British women do not want to go down the route of politicians seeking to gain a political edge by sensationalising and politicising the issue of abortion. Let us rest on the medical evidence.

The hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire said that the 1967 Act was a joke. I say to her that the 1967 Act was not a joke; it was a huge advance for the lives of women in this country. She talked about women marching in leafy suburbs. I have opportunities in my lifetime that my grandmother could never have dreamt of, and she was not brought up in a leafy suburb. As a result of political, social and educational advances, there are opportunities for women in my generation that our grandmothers could never have dreamt of, and the bedrock of those advances is women’s control of their own bodies and their reproductive health.

I am happy to debate this as often as Members want to bring it forward, but the debate must rest on the evidence, and we should debate the subject without denigrating our medical profession, and with respect for often very vulnerable women who have to make a difficult decision and do not welcome politicians sensationalising and politicising.