Legal Rights to Access Abortion

Debate between Fiona Bruce and Tonia Antoniazzi

Monday 28th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce]

That discussion has been ongoing for a long time. Many in this room hold different views on the subject. I happen to believe that life begins at conception, but I know that others take a different view.

Thirdly, the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, CEDAW, also does not advance any concept of a right to abortion. Nowhere in the text does it reference terms such as “reproductive rights”, “pregnancy termination” or “abortion”. Instead, it requires states to provide suitable care and services for women during pregnancy. Fourthly, the former UN special rapporteur for health has told the UN General Assembly that there is no international law on the matter of abortion.

It is also important for us to note that the European Court of Human Rights has never ruled that countries in the Council of Europe need to consider abortion as a human right, even though it has considered the matter several times over the past 20 years. Three points are relevant here. First, the Court has affirmed that article 8 of the European convention on human rights, the right to a private and family life, cannot be interpreted as conferring a right to abortion. I will quote from a 2010 case:

“The woman’s right to respect for her private life must be weighed against other competing rights and freedoms…including those of the unborn child”.

Secondly, the Court has ruled that forced abortions are a breach of article 3—the prohibition on torture—noting that forced abortions can have

“long-lasting negative physical and psychological effects”

on women. Thirdly, the Court has reaffirmed that there is no actual right to abortion, even in the—I accept—tragic case of rape.

The UK really is under no pressure from the UN or from the European Court of Human Rights to reform its abortion law by classifying abortion as a human right. I would now like to consider the issue from the domestic perspective. I know that we have already had a lengthy discussion of the subject during today’s debate, but I would like us to acknowledge how chaotic it would make our laws here if we included abortion as a right—as a human right.

We have already had the discussion, and there are different views on what a right to abortion would mean. Would it equate to the wholesale decriminalisation of abortion? Would it create an absolute right to abortion? Could it mean the removal of gestational limits, allowing abortion up to birth? Could it mean abortion based on the gender of the foetus or the removal of medical safeguards, including the involvement of doctors? Would it mean the erosion of conscience rights for medical professionals? All of those questions would be thrown up.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I genuinely thank the hon. Lady for giving way. One of the things I try to grapple with is knowing how women feel. When I was on the Women and Equalities Committee—the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) knows this, because she was the Chair—I listened to the women. Does the hon. Member for Congleton really believe they should be criminalised?

[Fiona Bruce]

I have the utmost compassion for any woman put in the position of having to make a decision about abortion. I hope that nothing I have said in all my years in this House, when I have stood as the chair and now co-chair of the all-party parliamentary pro-life group, has ever given a different impression. I would never want to do that.

The proposal risks entirely removing safeguards in our country that relate to abortion, and which I believe are right and proper.