Baroness Neate (CB)

My Lords, as a former chief executive of Women’s Aid, I will specifically address the comments made about domestic abuse, particularly in relation to telemedicine. It is common for domestic abuse to begin in pregnancy, and it is common for all aspects of pregnancy, including conception, to be tools used by perpetrators of domestic abuse. That is why groups wishing to end violence against women and girls—domestic abuse groups, those who deal with so-called honour-based violence, those who deal with forced marriage, Rape Crisis and many others—have written to parliamentarians saying that creating clinically unnecessary barriers to abortion helps abusers, not survivors. I would really like noble Lords to take note of the fact that, in denying women discrete space for action, they are actually enabling abuse much more than they are preventing it.