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Oh God No! The beginning of the end for sensible politics in the UK?
Conservative leader Micheal Howard is planning to try to win votes through waxing moral on abortion. I have no words to describe how much the contempt I hold for anyone who trys to gain votes not through proper policy, but by trying to recreate the 'moral vote' that has wrecked US politics.
I dont think Ive been so angry about something the Conservatives have done in a long while.
Sickening - I always thought British politicians, for all their faults, were better than this.
I know it would be a small change but the overall strategy is clear and its a slippery slope once morality politics starts to infect and corrupt the system.
I dont think Ive been so angry about something the Conservatives have done in a long while.
Sickening - I always thought British politicians, for all their faults, were better than this.
Michael Howard is to make an explosive foray into the politics of personal morality by declaring that abortions are too easy to obtain in Britain and should be curbed.
In an interview to be published tomorrow, the Tory leader says that women are effectively now able to get terminations 'on demand' - the rallying cry of pro-lifers, who argue that legal safeguards designed to prevent abortions for frivolous reasons are being ignored.
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And he pledged to vote to cut the legal time limit for late abortions from 24 weeks - where it currently stands except in cases of serious handicap or risk to the mother's life - to 20 weeks.
His intervention follows a vigorous debate over whether, now that premature babies are routinely able to survive at an earlier age, the law should be changed.
'I think that what we have now is tantamount to abortion on demand,' Howard told Cosmopolitan magazine. 'I believe abortion should be available to everyone, but the law should be changed. In the past I voted for a restriction to 22 weeks, and I would be prepared to go down to 20.'
Pro-life MPs are determined to try to change the law in the next parliament, but - since abortion is traditionally an issue for a private member's bill - their chances of success rest on whether the next government would allow it parliamentary time.
Asked the same question by Cosmopolitan, Tony Blair admitted abortion was a 'difficult issue', but added: 'However much I might dislike the idea of abortion, you should not criminalise a woman who, in very difficult circumstances, makes that choice. Obviously there is a time beyond which you can't have an abortion, and we have no plans to change that, although the debate will continue.'
Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, said he had voted for a time limit of 22 weeks in the past, but added that advances in medicine mean that 'I don't know what I would do now'.
Pro-choice groups warned that restricting the time limit for abortions would mean many women - particularly teenagers, who traditionally present late for treatment, and mothers who only discover late on in a much-wanted pregnancy that their child has a serious abnormality - would pay a heavy price.
'Young women make up a high percentage of late abortions: they often just don't come forward,' said Anne Weyman, chief executive of the Family Planning Association. 'They hope it's not true, or might have irregular periods if they are young, so they may not be sure they are pregnant. There are also issues around older women who are peri-menopausal and may think there's no chance they are going to be pregnant.'
She said the effect of restricting the time limit would be to force women to bear children they did not want: 'The interesting issue is why we should wish to force any woman to continue with a pregnancy she doesn't want, by saying we should make it harder for women.
'What is the benefit to women, or the potential child, of forcing a woman to have a baby? What is the benefit to society - and what sort of life is that child going to have? People will talk about adoption, but really what are women supposed to be? Incubators?'
Only 0.6 per cent of abortions are carried out between 22 and 24 weeks, she added. More than 50,000 women had terminations in the last quarter for which figures are available, an all-time high.
Howard stressed his was a personal view, with all three parties supporting a free vote on the issue. But Eleanor Laing, the Tory spokesman on women's issues, said that while as a student she had marched for the right to choose, she now supported the lowering of the limit.
'I have always thought that abortion has to be legal and controlled, because there are tragic circumstances in which abortion has to take place,' she said. 'But the real question is what is the time limit?'
In the last US election, abortion was a key dividing line between George Bush and John Kerry, with religious voters indicating their willingness to cast their vote depending on where the candidates stood.
It has been assumed that no similar 'morality vote' exists in more secular Britain, but with the main parties relatively close on major issues, some pollsters believe single issues are gaining importance.
In an interview to be published tomorrow, the Tory leader says that women are effectively now able to get terminations 'on demand' - the rallying cry of pro-lifers, who argue that legal safeguards designed to prevent abortions for frivolous reasons are being ignored.
Article continues
And he pledged to vote to cut the legal time limit for late abortions from 24 weeks - where it currently stands except in cases of serious handicap or risk to the mother's life - to 20 weeks.
His intervention follows a vigorous debate over whether, now that premature babies are routinely able to survive at an earlier age, the law should be changed.
'I think that what we have now is tantamount to abortion on demand,' Howard told Cosmopolitan magazine. 'I believe abortion should be available to everyone, but the law should be changed. In the past I voted for a restriction to 22 weeks, and I would be prepared to go down to 20.'
Pro-life MPs are determined to try to change the law in the next parliament, but - since abortion is traditionally an issue for a private member's bill - their chances of success rest on whether the next government would allow it parliamentary time.
Asked the same question by Cosmopolitan, Tony Blair admitted abortion was a 'difficult issue', but added: 'However much I might dislike the idea of abortion, you should not criminalise a woman who, in very difficult circumstances, makes that choice. Obviously there is a time beyond which you can't have an abortion, and we have no plans to change that, although the debate will continue.'
Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, said he had voted for a time limit of 22 weeks in the past, but added that advances in medicine mean that 'I don't know what I would do now'.
Pro-choice groups warned that restricting the time limit for abortions would mean many women - particularly teenagers, who traditionally present late for treatment, and mothers who only discover late on in a much-wanted pregnancy that their child has a serious abnormality - would pay a heavy price.
'Young women make up a high percentage of late abortions: they often just don't come forward,' said Anne Weyman, chief executive of the Family Planning Association. 'They hope it's not true, or might have irregular periods if they are young, so they may not be sure they are pregnant. There are also issues around older women who are peri-menopausal and may think there's no chance they are going to be pregnant.'
She said the effect of restricting the time limit would be to force women to bear children they did not want: 'The interesting issue is why we should wish to force any woman to continue with a pregnancy she doesn't want, by saying we should make it harder for women.
'What is the benefit to women, or the potential child, of forcing a woman to have a baby? What is the benefit to society - and what sort of life is that child going to have? People will talk about adoption, but really what are women supposed to be? Incubators?'
Only 0.6 per cent of abortions are carried out between 22 and 24 weeks, she added. More than 50,000 women had terminations in the last quarter for which figures are available, an all-time high.
Howard stressed his was a personal view, with all three parties supporting a free vote on the issue. But Eleanor Laing, the Tory spokesman on women's issues, said that while as a student she had marched for the right to choose, she now supported the lowering of the limit.
'I have always thought that abortion has to be legal and controlled, because there are tragic circumstances in which abortion has to take place,' she said. 'But the real question is what is the time limit?'
In the last US election, abortion was a key dividing line between George Bush and John Kerry, with religious voters indicating their willingness to cast their vote depending on where the candidates stood.
It has been assumed that no similar 'morality vote' exists in more secular Britain, but with the main parties relatively close on major issues, some pollsters believe single issues are gaining importance.
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