David Smith

I rise to oppose new clauses 1 and 20 and to support new clause 106. All the new clauses concern the issue of abortion. Through the process of decriminalisation, new clauses 1 and 20 will introduce the possibility of de facto abortion up to birth for any reason in this country, for the first time in history. Let me be clear: this means that it will no longer be illegal for a woman to abort a full-term, healthy baby. That would be a profound change in the settled position on abortion in this country for the past 58 years—an extreme move that polling has shown that the vast majority of the country does not want. Indeed, recent polling shows that only 3% of the public support the idea of abortion up to birth. New clause 106 would diminish the risk of women being criminalised for abortions beyond the current legal limit through the reinstitution of in-person appointments. That is popular; recent polling shows that two thirds of women back a return to in-person appointments for abortions. I do not want to be standing here talking about abortion. It is not something that I came into Parliament to do. I am also very conscious that, as a man, I should be very careful about commenting on the experience of women. However, I feel that new clauses 1 and 20 give me no choice but to speak against them, despite my huge respect for the mover of new clause 1 in particular. What are we trying to achieve here? If the aim is to decriminalise women in difficult situations, I have huge sympathy for that. For eight years I was the chief executive of a homelessness charity that housed and supported women in desperate situations, many of whom were traumatised, dependent on substances, with fluctuating mental ill health conditions and extensive experience of the criminal justice system. A common theme among them was that they had been abused and harmed from a very early age, consistently into their adulthood. The women we served and supported still had agency. They still had free will. If their circumstances were desperate at times, they nevertheless often confounded those circumstances to rise above them. However, they also made decisions that they regretted. They made decisions, at times, that those around them—and even they themselves, later—were appalled by.