Health and Social Care

Maria Miller Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from the statement on 20 July 2022.

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and its recognition of the need to have specific strategies to make sure that women have equal access to services. However, it is silent on the biggest healthcare injustice that women face in our country—that abortion is still treated under Victorian criminal law, with the most draconian laws in the world. Seventeen women in the past eight years have been subject to criminal investigation, including simply because they suffered the appalling issue of stillbirth. This strategy should stop that by expanding the Government’s own change in the law in Northern Ireland to ensure that abortion is an issue between women and their doctors, and that every woman is protected from criminal investigation at a time when what they need from us is care and compassion.