Three Liberal Democrat MPs took part in yesterday’s Commons debate on giving women in Northern Ireland access to legal and safe abortions without having to travel. The recent vote to repeal the 8th amendment to the Irish constitution, paving the way for legislation allowing abortion up to 12 weeks in Ireland and the provisions of the 1967 Act in the rest of the UK. The issue has been devolved to the Northern Ireland assembly since 2003, but that Assembly is not currently sitting. The Irish referendum and a UN report from earlier this year which stated that:

the situation in Northern Ireland constitutes violence against women that may amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment

surely makes it vital that MPs are given a chance to find a way to give women in Northern Ireland the same rights that the rest as other UK citizens. The DUP argues for Northern Ireland to be treated in the same way as the rest of the UK in Brexit negotiations but will not hear of Northern Irish being given the same rights as other women in the UK.

As a Scot, I believe in devolution of power. I was glad to see abortion devolved to Holyrood in the 2015 Scotland Act because I saw it as an opportunity for us to lead the way on making the law more modern. My instinctive reaction when the Westminster Parliament seeks to interfere in devolved matters is to tell it to get lost. I also believe very strongly in a woman’s right to choose.

For me, the Northern Irish issue is one of human rights and so I think that the Westminster Parliament has a duty to act to ensure that women in Northern Ireland have the same rights as those in Ireland and the UK. Many MPs pointed out how difficult it is for women to travel. If they can afford it, they face a long journey while in physical and emotional pain. If they can’t afford it, or are in an abusive relationship, they are forced to continue with unwanted pregnancies. Alison Thewliss, the SNP MP for Glasgow Central rightly pointed out the impossible position that women faced with the benefit cap or two child limit face.

Christine Jardine tackled the devolution issue head-on and stated that her position was to support the rights of the women in Northern Ireland to access abortion:

I, too, thank the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and everyone who supported her in securing this debate. It is of vital importance, not in a party political sense—or any political sense—but in a human rights sense. Two issues are involved here. The first is that it is simply appalling in 2018 that abortion is still treated as a criminal issue, rather than a medical one. More than 100 years—only just more—after women were given the vote, we are here debating an Act from 1861 when not only was it all men in the Chamber who decided, but it was all men who voted for all the men in the Chamber to decide. The other issue is that even now women in Northern Ireland are the only women in the UK who are denied a fundamental human right: the right to choose—the right to control their own bodies. I have heard the debate about devolution. Even as someone who has campaigned consistently for devolution and whose party has campaigned tirelessly for it, I cannot find myself supporting that argument. I listened to what the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) had to say, but then I listened to what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) said and thought, “If I were one of those women sitting at home listening to us today, what would matter to me more: devolution and a political principle; or my human rights?” The answer would be my human rights and my right to choose. It would be my daughter’s human rights, my niece’s human rights and the human rights of every woman I know above a political principle. If that is not enough, perhaps we should look at what the legislation says, because human rights are not devolved. There is a precedent from 2007. When the DUP blocked the EU gender directive, Westminster stepped in and intervened. Legislation also gives the UK Parliament responsibility for meeting international obligations such as United Nations treaties ratified by the UK. UN bodies have found that Northern Ireland abortion law is incompatible with human rights treaties ratified by this Parliament. That is also the view of Amnesty International, which has said: “Northern Ireland laws have been repeatedly found by UN treaty monitoring bodies to be in significant violation of the various human rights treaties the UK is state party to.” We are not trying to usurp the rights of the Stormont Parliament; it is not sitting at the moment: we are simply trying to establish the rights of women throughout the UK, to put those rights on an equal footing, and to give every woman the choice. If we repealed sections 58 and 59, the Parliament in Northern Ireland would, as we have heard, be able to decide for itself how to proceed. I give my complete support to today’s debate, not just for myself, but for those women who have a right—a human right—and for our children throughout the UK. I want them all to be on an equal footing.

Earlier, Wera Hobhouse had made underlined this point:

Just to be absolutely clear, does the hon. Lady agree that repealing the provisions in the 1861 Act allows us to adhere to the devolution settlements and to respect women’s right to choose? They are not contradictory.

She later intervened on the DUP’s Sammy Donaldson:

Does the right hon. Gentleman understand that people who, like me, would never have an abortion support the right for women to choose? It is not for us here to make that decision; it is for the individual to make that very personal decision.

Jo Swinson said that we shouldn’t be policing women’s bodies, but giving them access to medical care:

We heard earlier from the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) about the devolution of policing issues to Northern Ireland. Does the hon. Lady agree that the fact that we are talking about policing women’s bodies is part of the whole problem? That is not the right context for this debate. Supporting women to take these decisions is a health matter and a medical matter, and no woman takes this decision lightly.

This Friday it’s a year since Wera, Jo, Christine (and Layla) were elected to Parliament. What a difference they have made. Jo has her record in Government and her ideas in her book Equal Power, Wera has her bill to outlaw upskirting, Layla has highlighted period poverty and Christine has made justice for women affected by State Pension inequality a key issue for her. They show why diversity is so important and why we must keep trying to make our group ever more representative.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings