Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-07-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): As Members of Parliament, we often meet people who have suffered deep trauma and have been through challenging times, but the evidence that I heard when I served on the Women and Equalities Committee, which was looking at the issue of abortion in Northern Ireland, was one of the most harrowing experiences that I have had in over a decade of being an elected politician. I speak as someone who firmly believes in a woman’s right to choose, but I also believe strongly, in sensitive matters such as abortion, that local people should be able to make their own decisions, and not have views imposed on them by people in another area I was born and raised in County Tyrone, and I know how sensitive issues on abortion and devolution are in Northern Ireland. During the Select Committee inquiry we heard from over 700 people, who had their own individual stories to tell about how the law and medical care in Northern Ireland affected them. I travelled to Northern Ireland three times. We held a number of public sessions, and also many sessions in private. The Select Committee report was agreed unanimously by all the Members who had taken part in those evidence sessions in Northern Ireland. The two Members who signed the minority report had not been to Northern Ireland to hear evidence Some cases were deeply traumatic. Sarah Ewart, who has been mentioned, was a young mum, newly wed, who was firmly opposed to abortion. At her 20-week scan, she was told that her baby had anencephaly, which means that the baby’s head is not developing—there is no skull or brain—and the baby will not be born alive. Sarah spoke to her grandmother, who told her how having to give birth to a child with a similar condition meant she had nearly lost her own life. Sarah told us how, when she received the diagnosis, backs were turned. The doctors, midwives and nurses felt that they could not give advice, because they had been told that if they gave advice to a woman in those circumstances they risked being sent to jail for life. Sarah went to England to have her abortion We heard from another woman who was carrying a baby that she knew would not survive birth, and who was too sick as a mother to travel. She ended up having to carry her baby in her womb until the baby died, and then deliver a dead baby. We also heard from a woman who had been diagnosed when living in London as carrying a child who was going to die, and was wrapped around with love and support, and enabled to deliver the baby early on and terminate the pregnancy. When she moved back to Northern Ireland in similar circumstances, she did not receive that care To be balanced, we also heard from a mother who was told that her baby was almost certainly due to die. She decided not to have an abortion, and the baby is now a healthy teenager. Most worrying for me was the evidence I heard from the chief medical officer, who believed that under the current regime, doctors, nurses and midwives in Northern Ireland could not carry out their duty of care obligations to women, especially women whose babies are going to die, so those mums’ lives were being put at risk The UK Supreme Court has identified a breach of human rights in cases of fatal foetal abnormality, rape and incest. The UN committee has found grave and systemic breaches of women’s rights in the same areas. Britain is a country that upholds human rights across the world. We cannot turn a blind eye to what is happening in our own country. There is no question but that the situation must be changed—the question is how. The Select Committee report contains a number of recommendations. The law on fatal foetal abnormalities needs to be changed. Women’s lives should not be endangered—women should be loved and cared for at that time. The situation for healthcare professionals needs to be changed, so that that chilling effect no longer occurs. We need to provide more support for those who find themselves pregnant as a result of rape and incest, and we must address those human rights concerns The new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) goes much further. It suggests that we remove sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which would fundamentally change abortion law in England as well as in Northern Ireland. In England, we have the 1967 Act, which tells us how abortion can be done lawfully, but what happens if there is an unlawful abortion? We know that the vast majority of abortions today are not surgical procedures; they are medical procedures, such as taking a pill. What happens if I was pregnant and my partner gave me that pill? How do we make sure that we can still prosecute an unlawful abortion if we have decriminalised it? I want to ensure that, before we change the rules or the law in England, we have gone through these circumstances and made sure our regime is robust. Before we decide to remove those sections, we need to make sure that our law throughout the whole UK is robust. I think that needs detailed consideration and does not just get done on a Tuesday afternoon in Westminster on the back of one Back Bencher’s amendments Finally, the lack of a devolved Assembly in Northern Ireland is having many really serious consequences. We have heard Members talk about people having to wait for their cancer care. I have heard about delays to education spending and about delays to infrastructure projects. I have heard about the uncertainty that that gives to people’s lives and people’s businesses, and the impact it is having on the economy. We need the devolved Assembly and we need these laws to go through, but we do not need the Back-Bench amendments attached to them. For that reason, I will vote in the same manner as the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee this afternoon.