House of Commons Hansard Debates for 24 Apr 1990

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than any amount of argument. Those statistics make the point that our abortion laws allow things to happen in the United Kingdom that are not allowed elsewhere.

If one looks at the rest of the European Community

Mrs. Mahon : The hon. Gentleman is talking about women coming here from overseas. If he gets his way and the time limit for abortions is reduced to 18 weeks--or to whatever level the hon. Gentleman wants--does he recognise that British women will become somebody else's "foreign" women?

Mr. Alton : No, I do not believe that. The hon. Lady is mistaken. All over the world people are beginning to assess again their attitude towards abortion. People in this country are recognising that abortion is a destructive act ; that it destroys a child and that it destroys women psychologically and physically. If the best that we can offer British women or overseas women is abortion, something is fundamentally wrong with our country.

In the rest of the European Community, social abortions are not allowed beyond an average of 12 to 14 weeks' gestation. As we talk about harmonisation of every other aspect of the law under the sun, let us be clear that the average European Community time limit for social abortion is 12 to 14 weeks' gestation. I hope that a modest change will be made tonight to reduce the time limit here to 18 weeks' gestation--I personally shall support that provision--which is a time limit that applies outside the European Community in another European country--in Sweden, hardly a country that has laws that are reactionary or damaging to women's rights.

I believe that we should make these changes because I believe that we need a system in which rights are balanced with responsibilities. Yes, exemptions will be voted upon tonight, and hon. Members will have the chance to vote on the hard cases of rape and incest ; of disability and of damage to a woman's physical or mental health. In 1988, on the Second Reading of my Bill, I gave assurances that hon. Members would have the chance to vote on those questions both in Committee and on Report. I was as good as my word. We provided for that. That shows that, although I disagree on some of these issues, especially on the taking of life because of disability, I tried to move in the direction of those who hold diametrically opposed views so that we could try to reach a sensible arrangement about the upper time limits.

I refer to disability. At the outset of the passage of my Bill, a young Anglican woman, Ellen Wilkie, who had muscular dystrophy, wrote to me, giving me a great deal of encouragement. Her mother had been told that the child would have that incurable disease and Ellen wrote to say that no one was capable of saying what a disabled person would be capable of. I met Ellen and worked with her during the passage of my Bill. Sadly, she died last year at the age of 29, but in the course of her short life she had achieved a classics degree, had written poetry, presented radio and television programmes and written a biography entitled, "A Pocketful of Dynamite", which is to be published shortly.

In that book and in the many things that she said during those weeks, she kept pointing out that one cannot confuse words such as "kill" and "cure". She said that it is not our right to take life merely because that life will be disabled. She said that we should not impose quality

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controls on life and that eugenics is the refuge of a society that has grown uneasy with disability. Disability is a challenge to each of us. We should seek to meet it with unconditional love, care and respect, not by choosing to take the disabled person's life. 7.45 pm

Mrs. Teresa Gorman (Billericay) : Is not the point that the hon. Gentleman is making negated by the fact that that person lived and achieved so much because her mother had a choice and made her own decision? The legislation that is favoured by the hon. Gentleman and those who think like him would prevent a mother from having the right to choose.

Mr. Alton : The unborn child has no choice in these matters. Ellen had no choice in these matters. The part of the equation that troubles me the most is that unborn children have no say ; if we do not speak for them here, who will?

Putting the disability issue to one side, because I know that the House is not convinced by it--I hope that it will be so convinced one day--the fact is that 98 per cent. of all abortions have nothing whatever to do with disability. Indeed, 92 per cent. of late abortions have nothing to do with disability. They involve perfectly healthy children.

Ms. Short : Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the majority of conceptions are destroyed by nature? Does he not accept that that demonstrates that he has got this matter wrong and out of all proportion? The majority of conceptions are wasted and never come to term to produce a child. The hon. Gentleman should take that into account and balance his argument.

Mr. Alton : What the hon. Lady says is true, but I believe that there is a plan for each of us in our lives. We are unique human beings. We are not expendable raw material ; we are all important and irreplaceable. I agree with the hon. Lady's hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy), who said yesterday that each of us is sculpted in the image of our maker. I believe that that is a truth. It may well be true that some fertilised embryos are not to come to term and that that is not part of the plan of either God or nature--depending on which one believes in--for them, but the problem for the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) and for me is that we can never know which would or might have come to full term. The difficulty is that, when one decides to take life in an abortion, one knows that that child would have come to term if we had not intervened.

Miss Widdecombe : Will the hon. Gentleman address another problem that was raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short), who has tended to deal with the argument in terms of numbers and who has said that, because an awful lot of unborn children, and an awful lot of embryos and an awful lot of conceptions, are wasted by nature, they do not have protection? If one were to take that argument logically, one would have to say that where nature wasted the majority of born individuals, such as in the distressing circumstances of Calcutta or the Third world, those individuals do not have natural rights. Numbers have nothing whatever to do with it ; all that has anything to do with this issue is the definition of life.

Mr. Alton : The hon. Lady will not be surprised that I entirely agree with that view. The issue that is dividing the

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House is the point at which one believes that life begins. If one believes in the sacredness and sanctity of human life, it is unlikely that one could sanction the taking of life.

Ms. Short : The hon. Gentleman has a serious problem. If he believes that life begins at conception and that God creates life, he must believe that God has created a system in which most of the lives that are created are destroyed. As I do not think that there could be such a silly God, the hon. Gentleman's argument is flawed.

Mr. Alton : The hon. Lady may well be putting in for the job, but I would rather trust in God than in the hon. Lady. I hope that she will not take offence at my saying that.

The natural process in which some embryos are lost shows that God works in important ways--

Ms. Short : In mysterious ways.

Mr. Alton : Yes, in mysterious and in important ways. Many of the embryos that are naturally discarded might well have carried a genetic disorder. This is one of the things that deals naturally with that problem, but handicap and disability are also put in our midst as a way of challenging us. Each of us in our own way is handicapped and disabled. We might conceal some of our disabilities better than others, but there is not a single hon. Member who does not have a disability. If there were to be a perfection test on life, many of us would have to watch out. Surely the House can never sanction quality tests and perfection tests on life.

I now refer to the way in which late abortions are procured. Two principal methods are involved. The hon. Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe) referred to the method of using prostaglandins when she described the case of the Carlisle baby. That is a graphic case which illustrates the way in which our law works at present. It involved not an embryo that was discarded but a baby of 21 weeks' gestation with all its organs in place. It was thought that the baby might have a disability, so, under the disability section of the 1967 Act of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale, it could be aborted. What was the disability? It was a non-inherited, in no way life-threatening skin disease. At 21 weeks' gestation, the baby was aborted. It was left to struggle for life for three hours before it was placed in a black sack and incinerated. The doctors and nurses on duty could not fight to save the life of the child because it was part of an abortion.

Here we have a dilemma--that doctors cannot fight to save the life of a child at 21 weeks' gestation. The county coroner said in reply to a letter on the matter that it was in the public interest that there should be an inquest. He was overruled by the Law Officers. That was a tragedy, because it is in the public interest that such cases should be examined.

Ms. Primarolo : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Alton : If the hon. Lady will let me make some progress, I shall give way in a little while.

About 300 other babies are probably in an identical position to that of the Carlisle baby every year. In private clinics, the prostglandin method is avoided because it involves inducing labour and poisoning the baby, and it is a long drawn-out process. As we have already heard, the preferred method in private clinics is dilation and evacuation. That method involves inserting a pliers-like

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instrument into the uterus and crushing the baby's skull. That baby is then dismembered and removed piece by piece.

No anaesthetic is used on the child, even though, as the right hon. Member for Castle Point said, from seven weeks' gestation a baby can feel pain. In other words, the baby is writhing in agony during those procedures. Nothing short of that is true. The House must address those facts of life and death. That is what happens in late abortions by the prostaglandin and dilation and evacuation methods. That is what we sanction with the full authority of British law.

Another example of the way in which we go about abortion is selective reduction. That is one of the latest pieces of terminology to be coined. The Lancet had a letter recently from a doctor suggesting that it would be better to call it pregnancy enhancement. A few weeks ago, a baby of 27eeks' gestation was aborted. It was to be one of twins and the mother was told that it would suffer from a gene disorder that would leave it sterile for life. At 27eeks' gestation, the twin was aborted. It was done by injecting the child with potassium chloride--by stabbing it to death through the wall of the womb.

I wrote to the Law Officers about that case. I am glad that the Solicitor- General has said that there is to be an investigation into the incident. The fact that that could happen in this country is indicative of our sad state of affairs. It is also indicative that within two weeks, the other twin came early because of the trauma that it had experienced. That baby's life was put at risk and, ironically, exposed to the danger of handicap caused by premature birth, about which we heard earlier. That is an illustration of the nonsensical way in which the abortion laws are working.

Ms. Primarolo : I wish to make two points. First, returning to the Carlisle case, which is quoted continually as a horror story, the hon. Gentleman may or may not have been in the Chamber when the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) spoke. He said that the doctor who undertook the termination was a supporter of SPUC. Presumably he was not a supporter of abortion, so there must have been a good reason for carrying it out. Secondly, we have heard many times this afternoon about the case that the hon. Gentleman has just reported. It is a horror story. The fact that the case is being investigated after an allegation has been made does not mean that the allegation is true. The hon. Gentleman should not present accusations as truth in the Committee, because it is misleading to do so.

Mr. Alton : I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I have received a letter from one of the medical staff involved that evening.

Mr. Flannery : A member of SPUC.

Mr. Alton : That member of staff is not a member of any organisation. The letter describes the details of the case of the King's college baby. I have the letter here and I have submitted it to the relevant authorities. No one doubts the authenticity of the events that are described. Although the hon. Lady says that such cases are horror stories, the truth is that what we allow in this country is horrific and barbaric. The reason why the House came to the

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conclusions that it did in 1967 was that it was told about some of the tragedies caused by back-street abortions. Without minimising what happens in back-street abortions, can anyone say that what we have replaced that with--the massive taking of life in the way that I have described--is an advance or progress?

The King's college baby, the Carlisle baby and the baby that I described in the dilation and evacuation at 18 weeks' gestation were 1 ft in length, pumping 50 pints of blood a day, with every one of their organs in place. They were as much a member of the human race as any person in the Chamber this evening.

Miss Widdecombe : I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman a second time. A point arose that I did not want to lose and I did not know whether the hon. Gentleman would answer it. I do not want the doctor in the Carlisle baby case to be introduced into the debate. He did not start the abortion. The hon. Gentleman will confirm that the abortion was started by a consultant who went home leaving a pro-life doctor and two Catholic nurses to pick up the pieces.

Mr. Alton : I was coming to that point next. Although, to the best of my knowledge, the doctor is not a member of any organisation, I have met him and I know that he has pro-life views. That is still not a crime in this country. Life is made difficult for members of the medical profession who are pro-life. I have talked to gynaecologists, doctors and nurses who have told me of their difficulties when they try to obtain promotion in their profession. It is difficult for them unless they are prepared to participate in abortion.

I refer the House to letters that I have received from members of the medical profession who have been placed in a dilemma. One is from midwives about a live birth during an abortion at 22 weeks : "As midwives we are required to register any infant that lives and breathes independently of its mother for one minute as a livebirth, irrespective of its gestation. We received into our Unit one night twins of 22 weeks gestation accompanied by their grieving father The second one survived for 10 hours or so. However, the obstetrician in charge said, What fool had those babies baptised?' From his point of view they were probably abortions, especially if at the other end of the corridor he had been conducting 7-month hysterectomies that day."

Another letter says :

"I myself nursed a baby who was judged to be between 20 and 22 weeks gestation who ten years ago made medical history by surviving. Surely we have come further in medical technology and in civilisation since then to say that these children have rights as well?" Another letter from a nurse says :

"As an SRN I have nursed many young girls who have undergone termination of pregnancy' Many of these girls I am sure will be scarred for life. Many seem to be almost innocent victims of a corrupt, greedy system. The Abortion Act is grossly misused Our society seems to think so high-tech these days that they have lost the reality of what happens in an abortion. They are the sordid facts which people should know."

Another letter says :

"I am a junior doctor working in the Special Care Baby Unit. In the Unit we often spend all day and night battling to save the life of just one of these babies, and last week while we were successfully allowing a baby to go home, I realised that this same child could have still been killed under the 1967 Act, if unborn. I find it incredible that in the same hospital babies can be saved in one ward and killed in the next by the same profession."

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That is the dilemma in which we place medical practitioners. Recently a case came before the courts in Liverpool, which illustrates how far we have been conditioned by the thinking of the 1967 Act. A young mother eight months into pregnancy was run over on a pedestrian crossing by a drunken driver. The driver was sentenced to three months and given a £1 fine. In the court it was said that the baby did not count, yet it was eight months into gestation. That is where our attitudes and thinking have taken us.

Since 1967, some 3 million babies have been aborted, of which 184, 000 were aborted last year. That is some 600 every working day. One in five pregnancies now ends in abortion. The legislators of the day--this evening we have again heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale--said that if we passed the Bill, there would be no more child abuse, every child would be wanted and it would give women new rights. Sadly, despite the sincerity of those who made the claims, many of them ring hollow today.

Tonight's votes will not stop abortions or enshrine the right to life, but they will give the Committee the chance to address an assessment of human viability made 61 years ago. I urge the House not to vote for cosmetic change. As the 24-week clause is drawn, it would not stop a single one of the 184,000 abortions last year. I hope that the House will recognise that a time limit of 18 weeks is far more compatible with what we now know about viability and humanity. Several Hon. Members rose

The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Paul Dean) : Order. It will be evident to the Committee that many hon. Members wish to speak. Unless speeches are much shorter, many will be disappointed.

8 pm

Mrs. Gorman : Since I have been a Member of the House I have sat through most of our debates on this subject and have listened, as we all do, to the elaborations in great clinical detail about abortions. I have heard the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) rehearse his emotive arguments so often and others refute all those arguments that I do not intend to spend my time going over them again.

One thing always strikes me about these debates. Although superficially we are talking about medicine, science and when, where and whether we should stop abortion, emotions and deep passions bubble up from underneath. What motivates those who persist in trying to amend a woman's right in these affairs is theology. They make no bones about it. They persistently refer to their Christianity, their Christian values and their Christian views. That is the motive which subsumes what the so-called pro-life group is up to.

Those motives form one of the deepest, most misogynous strands in human society. For centuries, theologians have equated sex with sin and celibacy with grace. They have regarded women as little more than flower pots in which future generations of children, preferably boy children, are reared. Time and again we hear people pay lip-service to a woman's rights in this, yet when it comes down to it they legislate to give priority to the rights of the foetus that she carries. Whatever time

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limit they come up with, whether 18 weeks or some other, their motivation is to prevent a woman from controlling her fertility. Christianity has always speculated in clinical and almost obsessive detail about sex, from Adam and Eve to the gynaecology of the virgin birth, which could be tolerated only by an elaborate mythology which eliminated the sexual act from procreation. The doctrine of original sin cultivates in pathological detail the central facts of life of human sexuality.

It is the advance of science in providing safe, sound contraception and now termination for women, together with the early legislation that decriminalised abortion, which have produced the furious reaction from the opponents of women's sexuality. We see the screaming, spitting harridans of both sexes outside the clinics where women go for termination, trying to prevent them from going in to exercise their legal right.

Many people who have contributed to these debates continue that deeply misogynous tendency which existed in the early Church. They love to deal in sordid detail with the concept of abortion and how it happens. Yesterday they tried to shock us by sending plastic models through the post. The concept of a woman having a right to control her sexuality, let alone enjoy it, is anathema to them.

If I were to take a hand count in the House of people who believe that a woman has a right equal to a man's to enjoy her sexuality, I should probably have all hands up, but if I asked whether a woman had the right to deal with the unforeseen consequences of the overwhelming passion which consumes her, as it does a man, it would be a different story and there would be talk of social abortions--when women conceive without being properly prepared, as it is usually described. We are told by the so-called humanist preachers of the pro-life movement that in those circumstances a woman has, to all intents and purposes, sinned and must bear the consequences. They may not use that old-fashioned biblical language, but that is what they mean.

If the Pied Piper of Mossley Hill had his way, he would lead the House and the country back to the time when women were the victims of their sexuality --perpetually pregnant, physically worn down, old before their time, unable to find time to develop the other talents with which they were born and always subservient to a man and to the demands of the family. The path that the hon. Gentleman would have us go down would lead us back to those dark days when the only contraception allowed to a woman was the right to say no to her sexuality when confronted with a natural situation to which she would be inclined to respond naturally.

The products of those unfortunate conceptions are the result of a man's sexuality as much as a woman's, but the man, of course, bears no responsibility for carrying through that product. Men laugh about it. They chuckle and sneer and talking about putting a woman in the club or whatever other expression they choose to use. They like the idea that a woman has to bear the unwanted progeny of a desirable or undesirable union. The number of men in these debates who repeat remarks which are fundamentally anti- feminist, dictating to a woman what she will do with herself as a result of those circumstances, sticks in my throat.

If hon. Members think that the scenario that I am painting is melodramatic, they have only to witness the situation in Romania, where another form of dogma has

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denied women both contraception and abortion. There we see the tragedy of orphanages brimming over with unwanted children, women dying in large numbers because of the equivalent of back-street abortions, and rampant AIDS--the product of a perverted

intercourse--from which many of the children in those orphanages are dying. That is the reality which would result from the doctrine embraced by the pro-life group.

The so-called pro-life group are not what they seem. In my view, they are pro-death--the death of women from illegal abortions or unwanted childbirth. They are also pro-death for the deformed and unviable little children who are born only to suffer and die soon after. They are pro-death for human love in families because of the stress caused by the unfortunate and sometimes tragic circumstances forced upon people as a result of the dogma embraced by the hon. Member for Mossley Hill. The pro-life group would seek to deny a woman, but not a man, the right to her biological nature, her sensuality, her sensitivity and the end result of it. That is what it is all about.

Speaking as a woman, I believe that the great majority of women in this country--and throughout history--would agree that they should have the right, as a man has, to enjoy their sexual nature, and they are grateful for the opportunity that progress and science has given them to control that nature. If the men in this House, and some of the women, are mindful to deprive women of part of their sexual nature, they should think carefully about their motivation. The scholars of the church, such as Albertus Magnus, one of the early fathers of the Catholic Church, declared that women existed simply for the sexual enjoyment of men. That attitude prevails today in judges who tell juries that women who say no do not necessarily mean it. That is the end product of such thinking.

We know that the Catholic Church wants to deny contraception and termination. We see the appalling consequences of that in the south of Ireland, where babies are dumped on beaches to drown, or left in dustbins. We even see the strength of the Catholic Church in Northern Ireland, where British women in part of the British Isles have to come to this country for a termination, so strong is the Church's influence in that part of our country. It is important to remember that things are not what they seem to be when considering this Bill.

Mr. Seamus Mallon (Newry and Armagh) : When the hon. Lady talks about Ireland, north and south, she should be reminded that there is one thing at least that unites all the Churches--their stand on this topic. Rightly or wrongly, let us be consistent and accurate rather than, in the hon. Lady's terms attributing blame to one specific Church. They all agree on this issue.

Mrs. Gorman : I am grateful for that intervention, but two wrongs do not make a right.

Ms. Short : What my hon. Friend the Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) has said is true, but in Ireland women want advice on abortion but clinics which seek to give it are illegal. People who merely seek to assist women who want information so as to make a decision can be prosecuted in the courts. The Churches may agree with one another, but not all the people who live in those countries agree with the Churches.

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Mrs. Gorman : I am grateful for that intervention.

Since the enactment of the Abortion Act 1967, which granted a woman, with the advice of her medical practitioner, the right to end a pregnancy for whatever reason she deemed essential to her happiness, that of her family or the interest of the child that she is carrying, we have been bombarded by attempts to remove that right. In so doing, the House is declaring that an individual woman should not be allowed to make that most fundamental decision for herself. Often men are trying to deprive her of the right to make that decision--time and again, we have to remind ourselves of the predominance of male opinion in this Chamber--on a matter that no man ever has to face. 8.15 pm

Miss Widdecombe : The hon. Lady has said a great deal about women's rights and sexuality, but the specific issue under discussion is a woman's right over the life of her unborn child. The hon. Lady's speech is not along those lines, but where does she believe that that right begins and ends? At what point does she give the right to the child?

Mrs. Gorman : The hon. Lady questions me in clinical detail. I have already said that I do not intend to spend time on such detail, but I would not limit the right of a woman--I would leave it to the woman, her medical adviser and her family to make the decision. It should not be a political decision. I would far rather trust the woman and her medical adviser than any Members of this House who think that they should have the right to make that decision for her.

Ms. Harriet Harman (Peckham) : The hon. Lady may have noticed the snorts and derision which followed her statement that there should be no limit to the right of the woman and that the decision should be left to the woman and the medical adviser. Is the hon. Lady aware that in the Netherlands, which has much less restrictive time limits than our own and where the decision is more or less left to the woman and her medical adviser, the abortion rate is far lower than here? There are also fewer late abortions because there are good early referral systems and the family planning service has been sorted out.

Mrs. Gorman : I am gratified to know that there are

countries--democracies--which have adopted a more civilised and reasonable attitude than ours.

The pro-life lobby has a perfect right to try to persuade people to its point of view, but it does not have the right to come to this Chamber time and again to try to deprive women of what has become part of their rights in this country. Persuasion is one thing, but inflicting one's views on others in such circumstances is reprehensible. I hope that those views will be rejected.

I hope that the majority of my colleagues, perforce mainly male, who do not have to bear the responsibility of an unwanted birth and pregnancy and who do not have to make such decisions, will not have the temerity, arrogance, inhumanity and insensitivity to make those decisions for women. As sure as eggs are eggs, women will continue to make such decisions for themselves-- if not here, then somewhere else. The grand illusion of the House is that one can legislate to force people into different patterns of behaviour. One can indeed suppress and repress, but that should not be our business. This is supposedly a liberal society and we

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should accord to the women of that society the maturity and ability to make decisions about such matters for themselves. I hope that the House will leave the legislation as it stands.

Mrs. Mahon : I entirely agree with the description of the House given by the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) when she said that it had a strongly misogynist streak running through it. It is overwhelmingly male, and it is important to remember that fact when discussing abortion. The fact that we are debating the subject of abortion at all today is a serious abuse of parliamentary procedure. Those who tabled the amendments have ignored the majority view, which supports the 1967 Act and believes it should stay as it is, and have caved in to religious and extremist organisations such as the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children and LIFE. If they were honest, they would admit that they are against all abortions.

The anti-abortionists are dishonest. They pretend to support a lowering of the time limit and to be satisfied with that when we know that they will not be satisfied. The hon. Member for Billericay was absolutely right--they represent a firmly fixed idea which involves controlling women's fertility, keeping them in their places and forcing them to have unwanted pregnancies. Conservative Members who support SPUC but also favour cuts which take away services for women, as they have recently done, are behaving in a highly hypocritical manner and clearly have double standards.

Mr. Flannery : If we had a democratic set-up, I could not imagine this debate taking place in this way. If there were a large number of women in the House, the problem would not arise in this form. I also find it alarming and vulgarly opportunist for people who are totally against abortion but will not admit it to pronounce, by their own definition, that they are willing to commit murder at 18 or 22 weeks. If that is not opportunism, I do not know what is. Those who think like that should go to confession.

Mrs. Mahon : I agree with my hon. Friend.

A report in today's press mentions reductions in family planning services. In some areas, such services have been cut by 50 per cent. We are debating restricting abortions still further when such a statistic exists and such cuts are taking place across the country. It is a disgrace to be suggesting today that abortion should be restricted still further.

Conservative Members who have spoken against all forms of abortion are the enemies of women. The same people who stand up today and talk about the sanctity of life will go through the Lobby to vote for hanging and for defence estimates involving large amounts of money to procure the weapons of mass destruction. Apparently the sanctity of life is precious when it relates to a group of undifferentiated cells, but not when it comes to frying men, women and children with nuclear weapons. I find that totally unbelievable.

Ms. Short : Moreover, 25 per cent. of the world's population go to bed hungry every night. Many are children who die because they do not get enough food. Yet Conservative Members have consistently voted for cuts in overseas aid and for changes in the international economy

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which have increased the number of children dying in a world which produces twice as much food as its population consumes.

Mrs. Mahon : My hon. Friend makes a telling and moving point, which is true.

Miss Widdecombe : I have made it clear throughout that my guiding principle is that of balancing a life against a life. Where there is no other life to be balanced, as in an ordinary social abortion, I want to retain the life of the unborn child. Where two lives are at issue, as in cases where the mother will otherwise die, I agree that one cannot insist on one life or the other. Without going into a great philosophical treatise, I support the death penalty because I believe that it saves lives and I support defence expenditure because I believe that the only way not to have brutal war is to be prepared against it.

Mrs. Mahon : The hon. Lady's explanation is staggering. Does she not accept that people have sometimes been hanged by mistake? Let her answer that.

Conservative Members convey the idea that abortion never happened before the 1967 Act. I said before, when I had been a Member for only a few months --I must be careful how I repeat it today because the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children made great play of it--that as a young student nurse before 1967 I had experience of back-street abortionists and what happened to women who used them. To pretend that abortion did not happen and that the 1967 Act somehow made it possible is a lie, and flies in the face of the truth. Many abortions took place before that time-- mainly at weekends because women with two or three children needed their partners to look after those children while they went to the back-street abortionists. We therefore knew that we would be busy on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) is not present. He goes on and on about the Carlisle baby. I wish that he had seen the results of women forced to use the syringe and slippery elm bark method. In some cases, the bark penetrated the uterus and caused all kinds of horrendous complications. I wish that he had seen the consequences of women who took poison and those who were bowed down by childbirth and had no access to decent contraception. If people are concerned about nurses now, they should have seen some of the nurses who had to pick up the pieces then. Another fact that I find unforgiveable is that we have evidence of what happened in Romania when a mad dictator, an insane man, decided to abolish not only abortion, but contraception. The Minister of Health in Romania estimated--records are kept there, and there is a health service--that in 1987 there were 300,000 live births and 1.2 million abortions, nearly all illegal. The rich could buy abortions, but the poor women, like those everywhere else in the world, could not. In Bucharest alone, 20,000 women were admitted to hospital in 1987 with complications following abortions because birth control was also banned. The average woman of 40 had between five and nine abortions. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe) does not even want to listen to what I am saying.

Ms. Short : It is her dream society.

Mrs. Mahon : That is true.

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Another shocking statistic from the Minister for Health in Bucharest is that it is estimated that one quarter of fertile women in Bucharest have been damaged by visits to back-street abortionists. I wish to make the point strongly that those women were kept in poverty, harassed continuously and denied contraception and abortion. If even the Securitate's methods could not stop women who had decided that they could not have another child, Conservative Members must be living in cloud cuckoo land to think that interfering with the 1967 Act will stop abortion here, because it will not.

Have those who seek to criminalise women here ever asked themselves why women take the decision? It is not made lightly. It is a decision that women agonise about. They do not want abortions. If we had a better Health Service in this country and, as the hon. Member for Billericay said, if there was less hypocrisy about sex, there might be no need for them. If a woman decides that she cannot go through with a pregnancy, a decision that is never reached lightly, she will have an abortion. What Conservative Members and most male Members do not understand is that the instinct telling a woman not to go through with a pregnancy is, like abortion, as old as life itself and they will not stop that instinct.

I believe firmly that women should have the right to choose. I am pro- choice--I am not particularly pro-abortion. We should be debating how to fund our National Health Service and plan our health care so that late abortions will always be unnecessary, how to organise early referrals, how to make family planning freely available and accessible to all.

I for one would be much more convinced of the genuineness of some of the arguments that we have heard today if those who advanced them spent a fraction of the time that they spend trying to criminalise women on some of the real social ills of society, and if they spent some of their energies on increasing child benefit rather than voting to freeze it. They should spend their time providing nursery places and paying for clinics and for workers to help to abolish the real crime in society--that of neglected, sexually abused children who are not wanted. I hope that the House will not interfere with the 1967 Act and that some of the men with their heavy consciences will start weighting them in favour of women and children.

8.30 pm

Rev. Ian Paisley : This debate is about the preciousness and sanctity of life, by which I mean the life of the mother as well as that of the child. I doubt whether I will be accused in this debate of being Roman Catholic. Although many hon. Members may not agree with what I say, I take the traditional Protestant line on this issue. Where I might disagree with the Roman Catholics in the House would be about the priority that I would give to the mother, whose life, I believe, must come first in all circumstances. That has always been the traditional Protestant view.

Nothing could be more important to the House than discussing this preciousness and sanctity of human life. I am well aware that all such debates raise hackles. I was very interested in the remarks of the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman), who made a forceful and robust speech that would go down exceedingly well in parts of Northern Ireland. Perhaps when she is supporting some of

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