UK Abortion Counselling Saved by Sane People

This is how to deal with rightwing nutjobs.

Trounce 'em.

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.

The health minister said they would look into the guidelines and consult interested parties and Field said that was good enough (for him to weasel).

But Dorries is still whinging.

Dorries claimed that the prime minister changed his mind under pressure from Nick Clegg, after the deputy prime minister was lobbied by the former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris. Dorries said: "Basically the Liberal Democrats, in fact a former MP who lost his seat in this place, is blackmailing our prime minister. Our prime minister has been put in an impossible position regarding this amendment. Our health bill has been held to ransom by a former Liberal Democrat MP."

Oooh. 'Blackmail' is some pretty strong language, Ms Dorries. You lost. Deal with it.

Update on the UK abortion counselling kerfuffle

Sense may yet prevail in the UK's current abortion stupidity.

The government has reversed its position on moves to strip charities and medics of their exclusive responsibility for counselling women seeking an abortion, saying it will now advise MPs to vote against proposals from a Conservative backbencher if they are put before the Commons next week.

But the situation is still dodgy, because like our idiot Liberal Party here, abortion there is not considered a human right but a 'conscience' issue.

If the amendment is selected next week, it will be a free vote for MPs, as is the tradition with the most controversial "matters of conscience". But coalition MPs will be steered to vote against it. It is understood that the prime minister, the health ministers and other senior members of the government will vote against. Labour has adopted a similar position.

But a combination of the unpredictable intake of new Tory MPs, split between social conservatives and modernisers, the number of Roman Catholic Labour MPs, and the high degree of nuance of the amendment make it extremely unclear which way the vote will go.

Again, with the 'nuance'. Is that journamamalism for 'voters are too stupid to understand and we're too lazy to explain'?