Maya Ellis

I rise in support of new clause 1 and new clause 20. I am someone who chooses the spend the majority of my time in this place focusing on women, who make up 51% of the population —on mothers, parents, women’s health and maternity—and I would like specifically to address comments that have been made in the Chamber today which pit the life of a foetus against that of a mother. Despite the fact that 40% of MPs are now women, and that every single one of us represents a constituency that will be 50% women, I rarely hear women’s issues being discussed here. On every issue in this House there is an angle that affects women differently, and that especially affects those caring for children differently, yet we do not speak about it. When people speak against abortion in any form, I am stupefied by the bubble from within which they speak. Will they also speak out about the risk of giving birth when two-thirds of maternity wards are deemed unsafe by the Care Quality Commission? I doubt it. Will they speak out about the fact that more than 1.6 million women are kept out of the labour market because of their caring responsibilities, which are seven times those of men? I doubt it. Will they speak out about children in temporary accommodation, the extortionate cost of childcare, medical negligence and the decimation of Sure Start? I doubt it. Until hon. Members have done their time making this world one thousand times better for mothers and parents, as it needs to be, I suggest that they reflect on the audacity of making a judgment in isolation today that cries, “Life.” Every decision we make in this place comes relative to its context. A woman who ends up in the truly agonising position of having an abortion is protecting a life—she is protecting her own life. Hers is the life that hon. Members choose to vote against if they vote against these amendments; hers is the life hon. Members would be choosing to discard. As others have said, in reality, the amendments before us today will affect very few people, but will critically mean that while a woman is the carrier of a child, she will not be criminalised for anything to do with or within her body. Given how little the world tends to care about women and their bodies, I personally trust those individual women far more than I trust any state or judicial system that has yet to prove it can properly support the rights of women. That is why I will be voting for this and any amendments that further the rights of women over their own bodies.