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Abortion Law (Northern Ireland)

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait). It is a shame that she did not have the opportunity to expand her views, because she would have made a valuable contribution to the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) on securing the debate. My heart did not leap with excitement when I saw that it had reached the Order Paper, but we have had a good and, for the most part, well-measured debate, and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the manner in which he opened it. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the so-called travel option. Northern Ireland is, and remains, part of the United Kingdom, so the fact that the abortion law does not extend to the Northern Ireland counties does not make abortion illegal. None the less, for logistic reasons—for reasons relating to travel and the rest of it—it remains a difficult option for women there to pursue. That messy compromise serves nobody well. Moreover, it encourages a double standard that pretends that it is all right for Northern Ireland to have a different law from the rest of us as long as people can quietly cross the Irish sea and have their terminations on the UK mainland. From the point of view of the women concerned, it is an exceptionally unsatisfactory situation. When young women contemplate a termination, they are at their most emotionally vulnerable. To remove them from the immediate ambit of their friends and family at that most vulnerable time is unacceptable. The hon. Gentleman also spoke about the picketing of Family Planning Association premises, which was taken up by the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Dr. McDonnell). Clearly, there are extreme views on all sides about this issue. If such picketing is going on, it is unacceptable. I bow to nobody in the defence of freedom of speech, but nobody suggests that freedom of speech is an unlimited right. When it comes to targeting individuals who are at their most vulnerable, that is an unacceptable use of freedom of speech, whatever the basis of it may be. Finally, the hon. Member for Reading, West mentioned that women in the 21st century can go online to obtain abortifacients. If that is happening, women in Northern Ireland are clearly in the same situation that women in the rest of the country were in prior to David Steel's Abortion Act 1967. When I was a law student, I remember reading about abortion cases in Scots law. At that time, slippery elm bark was one of the abortifacients that was used, and it was a brutal and inhumane procedure. Many hon. Members have talked about starting from a position of strongly held principle. I respect such principles, especially when they come from a religious perspective. However, for me, this has always been an entirely pragmatic question. My view was formed some 26 years ago when I was outside a polling station in Glasgow. During a quiet spell, I spoke to the duty policeman who was reaching the end of his 30-year service. He said, "What party are you for, Sonny?"—people used to call me Sonny in those days. "I am a Liberal," I replied. He said, "David Steel's abortion Bill was the best thing that ever happened. People forget that when women went into public toilets to have abortions it was the police who had to go in and remove the foetus from the toilet." I was struck then that whether or not abortion was illegal, we would never remove it from our society. As a matter of pragmatism—not high principle or religious belief—if that is going to be part of our society, I want to see it done in the most humane, clinical and controlled way possible. That is why the Government should, even at this late stage, take a careful look to see whether there is an opportunity for this House, while it retains the power, to have the debate that Northern Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom, deserves.