I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 619334, relating to legal rights to access abortion.
Thank you, Sir Graham, for being in the Chair today. It is very interesting being a member of the Petitions Committee. I have had the opportunity to lead e-petition debates in Westminster Hall on subjects where we have a culture war and different opinions. After the last debate that I spoke in, on assisted dying, I feel strongly that across the House we have so much in common, so we need debate that is sensitive but importantly does not leave us in our echo chambers. I was brought up with a Catholic education. I feel strongly about some of these issues, but I also feel that we need to discuss them. I would like to set the tone—perhaps naively, though I hope not—for today’s debate, because it means so much to so many, regardless of their beliefs.
I thank Caitlin, who started the petition that we are discussing—she is with us today. In a climate where many are cynical about political institutions and the impact that individuals can make, the fact that this petition from one woman gained over 150,000 signatures is an incredible feat. To make that happen shows what a great democracy we have in this place. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Caitlin to discuss why she created the petition, and why for her it is incredibly important to be proactive when it comes to a woman’s right to choose. Caitlin is a dual national—a UK and US citizen—who was moved to start her petition by the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States, which, due to various state-level trigger laws, has overnight stripped millions of women of access to reproductive healthcare, criminalising healthcare providers and snatching away rights that were seen as settled for a generation. Roe v. Wade has shown in the starkest of ways the fragility of rights that are not preserved through a positive legislative statement but, like our own Abortion Act 1967, drawn from exceptions and interpretations of the law. It is impossible to think of any other basic health services that are accessed like that, particularly in the United Kingdom where free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare, accessed through the national health service, is a matter of pride.
For Caitlin, abortion as essential healthcare has particularly resonance; her grandmother suffered a late partial miscarriage and required a late-in-pregnancy abortion—a procedure that not only kept her alive but enabled her to have further children. We have all seen the horrific stories emanating from the USA since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. A woman in Wisconsin, left bleeding for more than 10 days after an incomplete miscarriage. A doctor in Texas, told not to treat an ectopic pregnancy until it ruptured. A 10-year-old pregnant with her rapist’s child, forced to travel across state lines to get an abortion. Those stories seem a world away from us but, much like the USA in the Roe era, abortion in England and Wales is not a legal right.