Nadine Dorries's abortion proposals heavily defeated in Commons

[G_j]

Source: Gurdian UK

Nadine Dorries's abortion proposals heavily defeated in Commons

Abortion amendment that aims to strip termination providers of their counselling role loses by 250 votes



Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 September 2011 16.24 BST


An attempt to strip abortion providers of their role in counselling women was heavily defeated in the House of Commons this afternoon after a split between the original supporters of the amendment.

MPs voted by 368 votes to 118 – a majority of 250 – to reject the amendment by the Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries after she lost the support of her co-sponsor, the former Labour minister Frank Field.

Dorries managed to win the support of three cabinet ministers – Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, Liam Fox, the defence secretary, and Owen Paterson, the Northern Ireland secretary.

Field withdrew his support for the Dorries amendment after Anne Milton, the health minister, said the government would try to implement the spirit of her proposal.



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/07/nadine-dorries-abortion-amendment-defeated

[enlightenment]

1. Good to see, although this bit in the article is

concerning:

withdrew his support for the Dorries amendment after Anne Milton, the health minister, said the government would try to implement the spirit of her proposal.

Milton told MPs: "The government is … supportive of the spirit of these amendments and we intend to bring forward proposals for regulations accordingly, but after consultation. Primary legislation is not only unnecessary but would deprive parliament of the opportunity to consider the detail of how this service would develop and evolve."

Dorries hailed Milton's undertaking as a victory. She told the BBC's Norman Smith: "We lost the battle but we have won the war."

What, exactly, does 'implement the spirit of her proposal' mean? The 'spirit' of Dorrie's ridiculous proposal is the problem - why would they try to implement it?

[LeftishBrit]

2. Glad to hear itl

Not just because of the proposal itself, but because Dorries and some of her supporters are such nasty people. Ann Widdecombe and Cristina Odone were basically threatening to target pro-choice MPs with Christian-Right smear campaigns:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100103496/abortion-vote-the-fate-of-dr-evan-harris-should-be-a-warning-to-mps-who-ignore-their-christian-voters/

This had me in tears, as this refers to my constituency and former MP, and despite my not even being a LibDem supporter any more insofar as I ever was, I am still terribly upset over the viciousness of the smear campaigns. There were many other things involved, including boundary changes and a rather weak campaign by our MP and his party, so Odone and Widdecombe are exaggerating the influence of the vile religious-right smears, but their support for them and recommendation for their use elsewhere made my blood run cold. Not that Widdecombe and Odone were even accurate in the most basic details; e.g. our current MP is Blackwood not Blackman, and she won by 176 votes not 17.

But anyway it's a real relief to see this viciousness so soundly defeated; and I hope that it damages nutty Dorries' career.

I just wish that the ENTIRE 'let's lay the groundwork for selling the NHS to the highest bidders' bill would get defeated, but that is sadly less likely!

[stockholmer]

3. I so hope the NHS isn't drawn and quartered on the corporatist altar, alas it appears to be prepped

for the Helios carving knife.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2011/sep/06/nhs-reforms-still-privatisation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/sep/04/german-company-takeover-nhs-hospitals

[iverglas]

4. pleeeease don't let them trash the NHS this time around

I had to take my mum to hospital in North London in 1994 ... about the nadir of the system's erosion. Not a great experience. And of course my own interest in this is that anything your Conservatives do in this regard will embolden my local Conservatives here in Canada, who are in many ways way worse than yours to start with. ;)

This from the article:

The Dorries amendment would have stripped non-statutory abortion providers such as Marie Stopes and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (bpas) from offering counselling to women. This was designed to provide greater opportunities for independent counsellors, some of whom are influenced by pro-life groups, to provide counselling. NHS abortion providers would still be free to offer counselling.

... Diane Abbott, the shadow public health minister, said: "This amendment is a shoddy, ill-conceived attempt to promote non-facts to make a non-case – namely that tens of thousands of women every year are either not getting counselling that they request or are getting counselling that is so poor that only new legislation can remedy the situation. In matters of this kind, if legislation is the answer then you have almost certainly asked the wrong question."

shows what it's really all about, in the immediate case of access to abortion services. Another hurdle for women (the aim is to make "counselling" mandatory -- a pregnancy termination must already by signed off on by two doctors).

I would assume that the situation for the two organizations named (both are registered charities) is much as it is here in Canada: public hospitals do not provide services to meet the demand, so specialized private facilities are given unusual exemptions from the rule that services normally provided in hospital be provided in public facilities. As well, women often prefer the privacy and more personal atmosphere of the single-mission facility.


(We watched an old Graham Norton last night with Ann Widdicombe guesting, shortly after being voted off Strictly Come Dancing. The undercurrent of nastiness was there under the jolly, I thought.)