Abortion: limit stays at 24 weeks

IVF: need for father is removed

After emotional Commons debate, MPs deliver rebuff over four votes
The results are read for the 12-week abortion limit vote in the House of Commons
The results are read for the 12-week abortion limit vote in the House of Commons. Photograph: PA

Britain's abortion laws survived their most serious challenge in two decades last night when MPs from across the House of Commons rejected a cross-party attempt to reduce the upper limit of 24 weeks, and they threw out other restrictions tabled by the pro-life camp.

A late plea by the head of the Catholic church in England in Wales for an end to 200,000 abortions a year, which he made as pro- and anti- campaigners demonstrated outside parliament, failed when a series of amendments to reduced the time limit were rejected one-by-one.

In the closest vote, MPs rejected by 304 to 233 a proposal to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 22 weeks. This came after a series of amendments to cut the time limit to 12, 16 and 20 weeks were all rejected. The 12 week cut failed by 393 to 71.

The votes marked the failure of a campaign backed by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor to use debate on the human fertilisation and embryology bill to block or reverse major social and scientific changes. As MPs prepared to vote on abortion, hours after they increased access to IVF treatment for lesbian couples, the cardinal said: "The country as a whole [is] becoming aware that 200,000 or so abortions a year is not only sad but also somehow very wrong."

Ministers accused backbench anti-abortion campaigners on both sides of the house of hijacking the bill, which is designed to pave the way for greater scientific research to cure diseases, by tabling a series of abortion amendments. In addition to the four votes on time limits, a fifth - an attempt to make counselling compulsory - was rejected by 309 votes to 173.

Gordon Brown and most of the cabinet voted to uphold the status quo on abortion. But three Catholic cabinet ministers - Ruth Kelly, Paul Murphy and Des Browne - voted to cut the limit by 12 weeks and then by 22 weeks. A further 17 ministers outside the cabinet, including government whips, voted to cut the limit to 22 weeks.

David Cameron voted against the 12 week cut. But he voted for the cuts to 20 and then to 22 weeks, in contrast to George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, who followed his liberal voting pattern on Tuesday on hybrid embryos when he supported the status quo on abortion.

Evan Harris, the pro-choice Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, welcomed the votes. "Parliament has made the right decision, respecting women's rights to access abortion and taking the advice of the medical world about what the appropriate time limit should be."

The votes came after a passionate debate involving heated exchanges between the pro- and anti-abortion camps from all sides of the Commons.

Dawn Primarolo, the health minister, told MPs there was no scientific evidence to warrant a reduction in the time limit.

"The upper limit was set by parliament in 1990 at 24 weeks because scientific evidence at the time was that the threshold of viability had increased. It has always been linked to the potential viability of the foetus outside of the womb. That was the case in 1967. It was the case in 1990 and certainly the case now."

Nadine Dorries, a Tory MP who tabled an amendment to reduce the limit to 20 weeks, provoked gasps when she related her experience as a nurse of "botched abortions". Dorries gave a vivid account of what she had seen: "I became interested in abortion when, at a late stage, it became apparent to me as a nurse that far more botched abortions were taking place than should be.

"The first time this happened to me a little boy was aborted into a cardboard bed pan which was thrust into my arms. As I stood and looked in that cardboard bed pan, this little boy was gasping through mucus and amniotic fluid for his breath.

"I stood with him in a sluice in my arms in a bedpan for seven minutes while he gasped for his breath. A botched abortion which became a live birth then became a death seven minutes later.

"I knew that at that moment, as I stood with that little boy in my arms, that one day I would have the opportunity to stand and defend babies like him. I thought we were committing that day murder."

Mark Pritchard, the Conservative MP for the Wrekin, was rebuked when he produced a picture of a foetus at 16 weeks. He said: "Increasingly scientific evidence suggests that at 16 weeks unborn children do feel pain. This is not just a stress response, it is a physiological response."

After apologising, Pritchard said: "That picture is not an unrecognisable collection of human cells. It is a living small human being. Even some botched abortions between 16 and 20 weeks' gestation revealed the extent of their humanity."

Edward Leigh, a prominent Catholic Conservative MP who called for the time limit to be cut to 12 weeks, likened abortions to slavery. "William Wilberforce fought against entrenched opposition, he fought against moneyed interests and a world view that some people were not fully human. We know that we are up against it tonight. We know that the pro-choice lobby dominates the establishment, we know that we are talking about a multimillion-pound industry."

Christine McCafferty, the Labour MP for Calder Valley, who tabled a separate Commons motion stating that the current abortion time limit is "scientifically and ethically justified", said: "The pregnant women herself is the only person who can make a responsible decision.

"Abortion should be a private decision between the patient and her doctor, just like any other medical treatment. Why is it so difficult for societies, even one like ours, to give the power to decide to those who carry the consequences?"