Abortion in Northern Ireland

Debate between Layla Moran and Brandon Lewis

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend has been a powerful voice on this issue, along with other colleagues, over the last period. I know that a number of people appreciate the support he has given and everything he has done to make sure that women and girls in Northern Ireland get the right support and care. He is absolutely right: we really should not be in a position where people have to bring this matter to court individually in order to get the right healthcare. Parliament has put a legal obligation on us. There is now a legal requirement and a legal duty. I hope the Department of Health in Northern Ireland will take this forward itself, but we obviously have a legal and moral obligation in this House to follow through on the legal obligations that were put in place in 2019.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD) [V]]

I thank the Secretary of State for his robust defence of the human rights of women in Northern Ireland. I wonder whether he is aware of the troubling reports of women being wilfully misled by anti-abortion organisations, which encourage them towards anti-choice clinics, disguising themselves as abortion services. These clinics then string the women along until they are over 10 weeks, so ensuring that they cannot access early medical abortions in Northern Ireland.

That is happening because of a failure to commission services as there is not a clear pathway to abortion services. Have the Government made an assessment of how many women have been prevented from accessing early medical abortion services because they are being directed to these clinics?

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point. Even putting aside the legal and moral obligations of this House to ensure that the right healthcare is being provided in Northern Ireland, doing nothing, as some people may make a case for—I understand the sensitivities behind this—does not actually mean that nothing is happening. Doing nothing actually means that people are at risk of the kind of problems and misleading guidance and advice that the hon. Lady has rightly outlined.

There is also a risk that people turn to unofficial, shall we say, healthcare—inappropriate healthcare—that does not give them the right sort of healthcare. Actions and procedures then end up being performed illegally and in back-door areas in a way that means that people are not getting the right sort of support and healthcare. That leads to other complications and problems.

As the hon. Lady has said and others have referred to, as I did earlier, there are too many harrowing examples of people who have not been able to get access to healthcare in the right way. Whatever our views on these matters and the sensitivities, we need to ensure that women and girls in Northern Ireland, like those in the rest of the United Kingdom, have access to good quality advice and good quality, proper, official well advised healthcare that takes into account their own individual needs.