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Abortion Law (Northern Ireland)

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) for raising this subject. It is a very difficult one and clearly this Chamber is very divided. The difficulties faced by young women in Northern Ireland came home to me when I went to a meeting in Portcullis house; I think that it was last week. Baroness Blood chaired the meeting. When I heard her talking about the situation of young women in Northern Ireland—women of child-bearing age—I was reminded of the arguments that I had to sustain alone, with almost no support whatever from other people, regarding the forced marriages of young women in my constituency 12 years ago. When I was elected 12 years ago, many people were coming to me for help to get a marriage annulled or to get divorced because they had been forced into a marriage in Pakistan. I had to do what I could. I also had to contact the Islamabad high commission to put a stop on entry clearance for the person coming in. I got very little support on that, for the same reasons that women in Northern Ireland are not getting much support now—because the politicians in Northern Ireland know that it would affect their votes at the next election if they supported young girls asking for the right to have abortions there or asking for help to come here. Still to this day, the girls I helped in my constituency will not talk about that situation, for the same reason that the girls in Northern Ireland will not. In Northern Ireland, it is probably referred to as "What will the neighbours say?" In Keighley, it was family pride and family honour that was afflicting them. So I feel as though I am in the deep end with this. I understand very clearly what the girls in Northern Ireland are going through. People can tell by my voice that I am finding it quite difficult to talk about this. However, I am here this morning to maintain the position that women in the UK have the right to control their own fertility and their own child bearing.