We live in a kingdom where a woman has the right to choose what to wear, where she has the right to chose what to eat, when to eat, when to sleep, who to vote for and who to marry. Yet while we call ourselves a western society, our western women do not even the basic freedom to choose about their reproduction, their own reproduction. They are denied the choice about their lives. How can we Mr Speaker (or ladies and gentlemen?) justify that to ourselves as moral human beings? Central to human dignity is the principle "that people have the moral right - and the moral responsibility - to confront the most fundamental questions about the value and meaning of their own lives for themselves, answering to their own consciences and convictions." So who are we to interfere (and interfere is a conservative word) in someone else's life? It is not only you or me who have a conscience, who have moral values, who have ethical values. We cannot impose our beliefs on others. .
Despite being a UK citizen, a woman from Northern Ireland has to pay for her abortion, and travel to get it. An average of 40 women every week make the journey to private clinics, largely travelling in secret, at great personal cost, both financially and emotionally. They are denied medical treatment legally available to other women in the United Kingdom, and will frequently be unable to obtain proper post abortion care or counselling, because doctors in Northern Ireland - who are understandably dubious about their precarious legal position - are poorly trained in, and reluctant to deal with, the complications of abortion. Research from the fpaNI shows that 68% of women travelling to England to exercise their human rights, are under the age of 24. Furthermore, 88% are either students or unemployed. So this has meant ladies and gentlemen that 88% of women have taken the courage to access their rights have also imposed an immense financial and emotional burden upon themselves.
