To Cameron's credit...

[Glow worm]

So it's ok for Dorries to tell women what to do with their bodies?

No definately not, but at least it makes a change from the dreary old men, who are unlikely to have ever experienced pregnancy!

 

[growingvegetables]

I just want the Dorries amendment to fail.

+1

 

[srw]

I may need to revise what I said about Chipping Norton...

 

[MacB]

I've watched this with a certain fascinated horror as it gathered pace. Echoes of the US were foremost in my mind. I've not followed it the last few days but I'm very pleased to hear Cameron has taken against it and it's come unstuck.

That's a good term and the echoes of the US send a chill up my spine, I'm not sure many people understand just what we could be opening the door to here. If you've ever been appalled by the behaviour of animal rights extremists then you have an idea of what could come creeping up. The pro-life anti abortion movement in the US wields some serious power now.

 

[Mad at urage]

... but here politicians have a modicum of self-respect...

Really? Does that include the Dorries kind?

I'm sure Cameron put a finger up to see which way the wind was blowing...

Far more of this, I would imagine than any "self-respect".

 

[Rhythm Thief]

She's a horrible woman. Private Eye have had their eye on her for a while now and even before the abortion issue came up she didn't seem like someone whose company I'd enjoy much.
Of course, any restrictions on abortion law will make it harder to terminate any pregnancies which may be the result of extramarital affairs with family friends of 13 years' standing.

 

[Red Light]

I imagine that being savaged by the Guardian is a bit like being licked to death by a bloodhound with no teeth.

The correct vernacular in politics is "Like being savaged by a dead sheep"

 

[MacB]

Do I understand correctly that the bill she is proposing is to get rid of the counselling that comes as part and parcel of the abortion process?

Why?

nearly, the gist is to stop abortion providers being the counsellors as well, couched in termas of an attack on vested interests acting in their own interests. Put another way, Marie Stopes etc make dosh out of abortions and so they can't be trusted to offer impartial advice.

But this one is really a case of reading between the lines and looking at who supports Dorries, both in the limelight and in the shadows. From some angles it's a very minor change and can be reasonably argued, from other(sane?) angles it's toe in the door time for some truly creepy stuff.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

... from other(sane?) angles it's toe in the door time for some truly creepy stuff.

Indeed. That's my problem with it.

 

[theclaud]

It's been defeated! Huzzah! The odious Dorries had the gall to use the words "this is a women's rights issue" in support of her position earlier in this sorry saga. Luckily I was unable to listen to the debate or I might have had to throw things around.

 

[srw]

..although the Graudina is reporting (no doubt with a view to a bit of stirring) that the House of Commons was rather innuendo-laden during PMQs. The odious Cameron (am I allowed to call him odious now? Yes) doesn't seem to believe that chaps who were excluded from Eton by virtue of missing some appendages are really chaps one can do business with.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/07/nadine-dorries-david-cameron-quip

 

[srw]

And it appears that Dorries has won even though she lost:

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.

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."

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

The real shame is that the commons is allowing itself to waste time on a numpty's batty proposal to change abortion law when they could more usefully be ripping apart the government's plans to rip apart the NHS.

 

[Wobblers]

The real shame is that the commons is allowing itself to waste time on a numpty's batty proposal to change abortion law when they could more usefully be ripping apart the government's plans to rip apart the NHS.

On the plus side, it also means they won't have the time to cause yet more damage, either....

 

[ASC1951]

The odious Dorries had the gall to use the words "this is a women's rights issue" in support of her position earlier in this sorry saga.

She is just as entitled to call it "a women's rights issue" as people who take the opposite view to her. Like you; and me.

I think MacB has it exactly right - it was framed as a proposal to stop advisers also being providers, which you can see the sense of in principle, but in reality it was a back door attempt by the God-botherers to reduce the number of abortions. MPs all realised that and it never had a any chance of success. There has been a solid Parliamentary majority in favour of abortion for over 50 years and allowing the Dorries/Montgomerie brigade to let off steam every few years isn't going to change that. It's just one of those issues. like the death penalty, that the minority will never give up on.

 

[theclaud]

She is just as entitled to call it "a women's rights issue" as people who take the opposite view to her. Like you; and me.

I think MacB has it exactly right - it was framed as a proposal to stop advisers also being providers, which you can see the sense of in principle, but in reality it was a back door attempt by the God-botherers to reduce the number of abortions. MPs all realised that and it never had a any chance of success. There has been a solid Parliamentary majority in favour of abortion for over 50 years and allowing the Dorries/Montgomerie brigade to let off steam every few years isn't going to change that. It's just one of those issues. like the death penalty, that the minority will never give up on.

No she isn't - it's a cynical appropriation. Essentially I agree with the rest of your post, although I'm not quite so sanguine about backlash movements melting away of their own accord. The Department of Health is headed by people sympathetic to the "spirit" of Dorries' amendment, and there's a real question about whether what srw mentioned above is mostly about face-saving or whether it betokens a determined but more stealthy assault on central principles of women's rights.