MPs to debate NI abortion laws
The House of Commons will debate Northern Ireland's abortion laws on Tuesday, after an emergency session was given the go-ahead by Speaker John Bercow.
MPs will discuss repealing parts of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 on Tuesday following an application from Labour MP Stella Creasy.
It follows last month's landslide vote in Ireland to liberalise its termination laws.
Ms Creasy told the Commons the Irish referendum had "thrown a spotlight on the situation in Northern Ireland'', where she said a million women are affected.
Making an application for an emergency debate, she said repealing the Offences Against the Person Act (Oapa) provides an opportunity to both to respect devolution and to respect women.
She added: "By repealing Oapa we as the UK Parliament can show women across the UK we trust them all with their own healthcare, wherever they live.
"I ask members to stand up with me and join in saying this is the 21st century.''
She said the situation in Northern Ireland was one in which "if a UK citizen is raped and seeks a termination as a result, she faces a longer prison sentence than her attacker''.
Ms Creasy added: "Where a mother of a much-wanted child given a heartbreaking diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality is forced to travel overseas for treatment.
"Where UK citizens are currently on trial - a mother of a 15-year-old girl on trial for buying her abortion pill.
"A situation that is a direct consequence of the legislation passed here in this House and that is why this House must act.''
She said Oapa puts abortion in the same category as homicide, yet said terminations are "the most common procedure that women of reproductive age in our constituencies undergo''.
Ms Creasy stated: "Stopping abortion provision does not stop abortions, it simply increases the risk of a woman either having to make a degrading and lonely journey overseas or forced to continue an unwanted pregnancy, or worse risking buying pills online that may not be safe, with the threat of prosecution if she seeks medical help.''
And she said that devolution, even if functioning, does not relieve the Commons of its responsibility to uphold human rights.
She added: "In calling for this debate we must be clear about the consequences of keeping sections 58 and 59, because extending the 1967 Abortion Act does not address the impact of these pills or the paternalism that means that women are not trusted to make their own choices, nor does it impose a particular rule on Northern Ireland: it will remove the impediment to Northern Ireland making its own legislation.''
Government ministers - including International Development Secretary and Women and Equalities Minister Penny Mordaunt and Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley - stood up in support of Ms Creasy's application.
Several prominent backbenchers, including former home secretary Amber Rudd and former education secretary Justine Greening, also stood.
Mr Bercow said the debate could last for up to three hours.