Legal Rights to Access Abortion

Debate between Martin Vickers and Stella Creasy

Monday 28th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech, although I fundamentally disagree with most of her points. For clarity, will she explain at what point she feels the unborn child gains human rights? Is it at 16 weeks, 24 weeks, 28 weeks—or never, until it is born?

[Stella Creasy]

I recognise the debate that the hon. Gentleman is trying to tempt me into. I have no problem with our existing legislation, except the fact that it is rooted in a criminal foundation. For me, decriminalisation is of paramount importance and urgency. My point is simply that when we remove the criminal foundation from which all abortion legislation follows, we create a lacuna. I am arguing that entering human rights into that lacuna, as we have done in Northern Ireland, is the right thing to do, because I wish my constituents in Walthamstow to have the same rights as women in Belfast; and right now they do not.

The Bill of Rights—and, I would wager, this petition—is about the 21st century and how those rights are exercised. That does not mean that we would not have controls on how abortion is accessed or that there would not be a right to discussion about time limits; it means that there would not be criminal prosecutions—not just of the women, but of the doctors and medical people involved—and that the legislation would come from a healthcare perspective. We do not have these debates when it comes to vasectomies or ankle injuries, yet somehow when it comes to a woman’s body we have determined, as the right hon. Member for New Forest West has said, that Parliament should be involved.