Michael Howard, the leader of the UK's opposition Conservative party, 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. Britain is building up to a general election, expected on 5 May.
In an interview to be published today, 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.
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 members of parliment (MPs) are determined to try and change the law in the next parliament, but -- since abortion is traditionally an issue for a Private Member's bill (a law proposed by backbench politicians, not the government) -- their chances of success rest on whether the next government would allow it parliamentary time.
Asked the same question by Cosmopolitan, British Prime Minister Tony Blair admits that abortion is a "difficult issue," but adds: "However much I might dislike the idea of abortion, you should not criminalize 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, says he had voted for a time limit of 22 weeks in the past, but adds 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 later 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 but really what are women supposed to be? Incubators?" she said.
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 sometimes tragic circumstances in which abortion has to take place," she said. "But the real question is what is the time limit? I think this is something that the next parliament will have to look at."
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