Offences Against the Person Act 1861

Debate between Karen Lee and Tony Lloyd

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd]

I agree, and my voting record is clear on this issue.

[Karen Lee]

I thought that the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) was going to say something about abortions being “convenient.” I worked in clinics and counselled women, and I tell him that they are not done for convenience. Some of those people are utterly desperate by the time they get to clinics, and it would be very wrong to think that people treat abortions as a matter of convenience.

[Tony Lloyd]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: this is not a matter of convenience. This is a heart-rending decision; many women whom I have spoken to over the years—I have represented many of them, but many others I have known in different ways—have had to go through the agonising decision as to whether abortion is the right choice for them. The decision should nevertheless lie with them, and laws should certainly not restrict that.

I want to emphasise what the Opposition and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow are saying. The Labour party’s position—we are the Good Friday agreement party, we believe—is that we want to see devolved government work, but politicians in Northern Ireland have got to make it work on this issue. They cannot shy away from it; if this issue matters to the people they represent, they must be in the Assembly making laws on it for the people of Northern Ireland.

Many Members want to speak, so I do not intend to continue for much longer, but I want to conclude as I began. This is not, in the end, an issue about lawyers or even about the philosophy of abortion; it is about real people. It is about real women, very often in situations of distress, who are looking for the law to allow them to pursue something that is prevented in Northern Ireland at the moment. It ought to be unconscionable that a woman is made to continue bearing a child doomed to die. It ought to be unconscionable that a woman who provided her 15-year-old daughter with the capacity to terminate a pregnancy should still be facing criminal prosecution, as we have seen in a recent case. On that basis, humanity now cries out for a change in the law.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow again on securing this important debate. It is not the concluding debate—no change in the law can be passed today—but even if we pass legislation to put the wording of the motion into law, other legal changes will still be needed both UK-wide and most definitely in Northern Ireland. This is devolution-compatible, and the politicians in Northern Ireland must now make that devolution work.