nadine dorries' allies

For context, let's take a brief look at the organisations which support Nadine Dorries' campaign to reduce the upper week limit on abortion to 20 weeks.

The Alive and Kicking Campaign state "our near-term objective is to halve the yearly abortions." Given that only a few percent of abortions take place after week 20, the group clearly supports far more stringent restrictions on abortion.

Though a strong majority of the public support abortion on demand, Alive and Kicking seek "a prohibition of abortions for social convenience." They also support a "Charter of Informed Consent," which in reality would take the form of compulsory counselling and an enforced "cooling-off period" of the kind rejected by Parliament last summer. There is no indication of what their long-term objective might be, but it would almost certainly take the form of even greater restrictions, potentially approaching a near-total ban.

Christian Concern for Our Nation and CARE (Christian Action Research and Education) are members of the Alive and Kicking campaign alliance, as are the Lawyers Christian Fellowship, the Evangelical Alliance, LIFE and the Prolife Alliance.

The Prolife Alliance oppose all abortion and believe that life starts at conception. Correspondingly, they also believe that the morning after pill is abortive because it prevents the implantation of a fertilised embryo. LIFE also believe that life begins at the moment of fertilisation (even though the human body naturally rejects a high proportion of fertilised embryos without outside intervention, making nature the biggest abortionist of them all.)

These are in no way commonly held views: repeated polling over the last decade shows continued strong support for abortion on demand. The overwhelming majority of organisations and campaigns listed above admit - quite openly - that a reduction to 20 weeks is only a stepping stone to further restriction.