The fight for equality isn’t just about what is attacked. It is also about what is ignored. As the Conservatives continue to struggle to strike a deal with the DUP to stay in power, MPs now ask if continuing to deny the rights of Northern Irish women to equal treatment is a price Britain should be willing to pay.

We are the invisible victims of the DUP’s anti-abortion hardliners | Elizabeth Nelson Read more

This month Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, fought and won a court case on his right to charge Northern Irish women for abortions if they have them in England and Wales, claiming he was doing so out of “respect” for the Northern Irish assembly.

Thus if a Northern Irish woman comes to London and requires an appendectomy, she is given one on the NHS free of charge; but if she needs an abortion, she has to pay – even though as a UK taxpayer she has already contributed to the costs of our health service.

Challenging this is not about overriding devolution, but ensuring it cuts both ways. Without change, a decision made in Belfast has consequences for UK citizens choosing to access services in Birmingham, Blackpool or Brighton.

This year marks 50 years since the passing of the 1967 Abortion Act, which granted reproductive rights to women. It therefore also marks 50 years of differential treatment for women in Northern Ireland. The court case threw this anomaly – and what it says about the reality of equality in the UK – into sharp relief.

On 14 June the supreme court narrowly decided to dismiss an appeal, and confirmed that Jeremy Hunt, as the secretary of state, has the right to make such a decision on our behalf. The case was brought by a young woman who in 2012, as a pregnant 15-year-old girl, was forced to travel to Manchester for an abortion at a cost of £900. The court members were divided three to two, expressing sympathy but arguing they had been restrained by the secretary of state’s view that this was the way to “respect”’ the democratic decisions of the Northern Ireland assembly.

Recent data shows that more than 700 women and girls from Northern Ireland travelled to England and Wales to terminate their pregnancies in 2016. This does not take into account those go to Scotland or other European countries, or women who purchase mifepristone and misoprostol illegally, because of their inability to travel.

The cost of providing terminations safely and legally to these women annually is estimated to be around £350,500. As this case will now go to the European court of human rights, it’s entirely possible that the taxpayers’ money Hunt could spend on court fees – defending his right to charge Northern Irish women for an abortion in England – would exceed the cost of offering such a service.

Hunt’s devolution defence of this policy looks even more unsustainable when you consider our aid spending to ensure women in other countries can access safe abortion services. As part of international development, the UK has spent £3m over the past four years to ensure that “women and adolescent girls must have the right to make their own decisions about their sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing, and be able to choose whether, when and how many children to have”.

While the secretary of state may be content to treat Northern Irish women in this way, MPs across parliament are not. The concept of our NHS being free at the point of need to all those who pay into it should not be qualified by place of residency within the UK.

We have asked Hunt to think again through an amendment to the Queen’s speech, and are committed to legislate if the secretary of state does not change his mind. With the prospect of the DUP holding the balance of power in parliament by propping up the government, issues like this stand little chance of resolution unless parliamentarians speak up.

We are clear that the fight for equality cannot be sacrificed to keep Theresa May and Nigel Dodds, the leader of the DUP in the Commons, in the same division lobby. You can ask your MP to be part of challenging this by signing the My Pledge, Her Choice campaign, in partnership with the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and the Family Planning Association.