Offences Against the Person Act 1861

Debate between Owen Smith and Jo Stevens

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) on bringing this debate to the House today. She has made an eloquent and compelling case for the decriminalisation of abortion across the whole United Kingdom, but she should not have had to make that case, because it had already been made brilliantly by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) last year. We should have enacted this change already. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow also made an excellent case about the compatibility of her proposals with the devolution laws. That is an important point to make.

I speak as a former shadow Secretary of State for Wales and for Northern Ireland—I occupied those positions for fully half the time I have been in this place—and I believe that choice and compassion for women should trump all the constitutional concerns. That is what we should be deciding as a legislature, either here in this House or in Northern Ireland. I am a devolutionist, and I believe that we should respect the devolution settlement in all parts of the UK, but I am also someone who believes fundamentally in the universality of human rights, including the rights of women in all parts of the UK—indeed, in all parts of the world—to choose what happens to their bodies and to have legal and healthcare systems that respect their choices and look after their health and wellbeing.

The abortion laws in Northern Ireland—however they have been derived, however long-standing the conventions might be, and whatever the views of the politicians in Northern Ireland might be—do not respect or protect the human rights or the health and wellbeing of the women of Northern Ireland. That is why they should be changed. Ideally, that should happen in Stormont, but if Stormont is unable to rise to that challenge, it should be done in this place.

[Jo Stevens]

Every man in this Chamber has control and choice over their reproductive healthcare. Every man in this Chamber can have a vasectomy if they wish to do so, without the threat of prosecution. As a woman, I have no control or choice. Does my hon. Friend agree that, for all the complexities of the Northern Ireland political situation, this is a matter of equality and human rights?

[Owen Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. Devolution necessarily means that there will be differences between the jurisdictions of the United Kingdom, but it should not mean that people in any one part of the UK should have a diminished set of rights. That is what we are dealing with in Northern Ireland.

I became utterly convinced of this case when I led a delegation of Labour MPs to Northern Ireland earlier this year to hear directly from the women of Northern Ireland about their experiences. One of the women who spoke to us has been mentioned several times in today’s debate. Sarah Ewart has become a great champion for the cause of reform in Northern Ireland, and her story is typical. At 19 weeks, she was diagnosed as having a foetus with anencephaly, a fatal neural tube defect. The baby was never going to live. She was unaware of the circumstances and went to her GP to ask for an abortion, only to be told that she could not have one. She ended up spending over £2,500 to come to England and undergo a not terribly satisfactory procedure, and being traumatised in the process. She is one of hundreds of women undertaking that journey, and one of thousands who have contemplated seeking, or have sought, medication on the internet to bring about an early termination. That cannot be right in 2018 in any part of the United Kingdom. It cannot be right that we endure circumstances in which the Victorian practice of backstreet abortions is growing in part of the United Kingdom. That should simply be unacceptable.

I want briefly to talk about the politics of this. Hon. Members from Northern Ireland have spoken with knowledge of their communities, but I do not think that we have heard a completely full account of where public opinion lies in Northern Ireland, or of the political situation there. One of the parties in Northern Ireland has changed its view recently—Sinn Féin has moved its position—and other political parties, notably the Ulster Unionist party, have previously stated that this would be a matter of conscience, were there to be a vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly. So it is not black and white that there is political opposition to this across the board in Northern Ireland. Nor is it right to say that there is public opposition, because some of the most recent polls have shown that up to 75% of people in Northern Ireland, of all faiths and none, believe that there should be decriminalisation there.