A proposal seeking to introduce “independent counselling” when a woman is seeking abortion, and disallowing organisations which have “any financial interest in providing for the termination of pregnancies” to provide such counselling, was heavily defeated in a vote in the House of Commons on Wednesday (September 7).
The proposal, introduced by Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, would have stopped abortion providers like the Marie Stopes Clinics and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas) from offering counselling to women.
Instead, women would have been directed to independent counsellors for help with their decision.
However as an exception to this rule, the NHS, which provides abortions, would have been allowed to counsel pregnant women.
MPs voted 368 votes to 118 after there was a split in the camp of those supporting the amendment.
Conservative Nadine Dorries lost the support of the former Labour minister Frank Field, who called on her not to force a vote after hearing from Anne Milton, Minister of State for public health that the government intended to bring forward new proposals on counselling.
Reacting to the vote, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) said the defeat of Nadine Dorries’ amendments in Parliament was a relief. The charity had expressed serious reservations about the amendments, especially in light of Ms Dorries’ previous attacks on pro-life counselling organisations, “services which have done so much over the past 40 years to help women.”
In fact the sponsor of the amendment, Nadine Dorries, has always described herself as pro-choice and insists that she does not want to restrict access to abortion. However she maintains that it is wrong for abortion providers to counsel women with unplanned pregnancies.
"It must be wrong that the abortion provider, who is paid to the tune of £60m (almost €69m) to carry out terminations, should also provide the counselling if a woman feels strong or brave enough to ask for it. If an organisation is paid that much for abortions, where is the incentive to reduce them?"
Paul Tully, SPUC general secretary said Mrs Dorries’ proposals were aimed at ending the abhorrent situation where “abortion providers give a woman counselling and then abort her baby, and charge the NHS for both services.”
He went on, “This was a laudable aim. But by adopting a ‘pro-choice’ position Mrs Dorries confused pro-life MPs and maddened pro-abortion ones. And she has created an opportunity which pro-abortion health officials will seek to exploit to promote more abortions.”
On Wednesday health minister Anne Milton announced that the "spirit" of the Dorries proposals would be embodied in a consultation. MPs will be asked to vote on any changes to the system of counselling when the results of the consultation are presented to parliament.
Three cabinet ministers, including the Northern Ireland secretary Owen Patterson, supported Dorries’ amendment. Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband voted against the amendment. Prime Minister David Cameron was not present for the vote, but according to Dorries, he had supported her beforehand, but then changed his mind under pressure from Nick Clegg.
Mark Pritchard, secretary of the Tory 1922 committee who supported the Dorries amendment, has called for a wider vote on abortion.
"This was a good result considering the amount of misinformation and disinformation put out by opponents of the amendment and by the whips' narks. Many colleagues have said to me that a wider debate on abortion and term limits needs to take place in this parliament."
There are more than 180,000 abortions carried out in the UK every year.
In 2010 Stopes and the Bpas performed 100,000 abortions principally paid by the National Health Service.