Baroness Boycott (CB)

My Lords, I join this debate to follow up the powerful speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker. I have been involved in women’s rights for a very long time; I started a magazine called Spare Rib in 1972 and within that we campaigned all our lives for things such as abortions. I can honestly say that I think the life facing a young woman today is more frightening than the life that faced me as a young woman. I look at what is happening online, where you can download a very simple app. I had a lunch for Laura Bates the other day, which many noble Lords came to. She explained that I could download an app, take a photograph of the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman, right beside me, press a button and have a photograph of the noble Baroness naked—not with Kate Moss’s body, but with the noble Baroness’s body. You can do this at 11 or 12. It is really threatening being a young woman today. There are many things that are out of our control. We, as older women who have had successful lives, have to fight fantastically hard to protect this next generation from a lot of the stuff that is coming down the pipe. I very much listen to and know about the conspiracies and the power happening in America to try to alter fundamental rights such as abortion. I find it extremely distressing that measures such as this should come to the House of Lords and even be debated seriously, and that there should be a politicisation of women who face abortion. Frankly, nobody wants an abortion; I cannot think why people ever thought that. Nobody wants one. There are several things you do not say when you ask yourself, “What do I want to do in my life?” No one says, “I want to be an alcoholic”, or, “I want to have an abortion”, or, “I want to be a druggie”. You do not put those on your wish list. They happen and we should protect women and support them all the way through, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, spoke about in his fantastic debate earlier. These are people who need our protection and our love. I really support the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, in bringing this forward. I will take part in any further debate because this is vital, and we are vital to this. Our voices really matter here.