more "ironic" sexism

It's getting harder to work out which version of approved masculinity is currently in force. Today's decree - conveniently attached to the sale of a book - is an exercise in hi-larious "ironic" sexism.

Samples from the definition of the "retrosexual" include:

[Y]our mind is focused on the important things in life: sex, beer, football. Women secretly envy a mind like that.

You do not cook anything more sophisticated than Pot Noodles or baked beans. Cooking is her job. But when you have a Sunday roast - and you do, obviously - you carve with manly precision and flair.

Women like to talk, bless them. So don't try to stop her getting her feelings off her chest, however daft they might be. There's no need to actually listen, however.

But wait, there's also room for anxiety over the merest hint of male intimacy:

NEVER be alone with another man for any longer than is strictly necessary.

In case your penis drops off or becomes magnetically atrracted to his, presumably.

AVOID learning the other man's name for as long as possible and then never, ever use it (a humorous nickname, preferably abusive, may be permitted after many years of acquaintance, or when playing in the same sports team).

Yes, do either of those things and you might turn into some kind of homosexualist.

Remember, this is "irony," not the repetition of obvious, lazy, derogatory stereotypes to make a cheap buck - if you don't find this funny, then you're clearly some kind of humourless feminist. In fact, according to the Mail, the return of the retrosexual (i.e. being treated like shit) is what women have been crying out for since the arrival of the metrosexual man.

I can't quite get over how fucking stupid this all is.

tom utley: "I don't know the first thing about medical science"

Tom Utley, the high master of befuddled nonsense:

Before I go an inch further, I should stress that I don't know the first thing about medical science, except what I've gleaned from the newspapers, and readers would be extremely unwise to take any of my advice on the subject without first seeking better authority.

A better journalist might actually take that recognition of complete ignorance as the sign to go no further: maybe it's not a great idea to write about a topic of which you know nothing. You might embrace your self-awareness in an attempt to refrain from inadvertently talking utter bollocks. An editor might take the opportunity to wheel your bath-chair away from the keyboard.

Not Tom, though. With Tom, that's clearance to write things like this:

But the more we learn about the wonder-drug, the more truth there seems to be in Waugh's central theory that the great majority of diseases fall into one of two categories: the incurable, for which doctors can do nothing; and those that go away, either of their own accord or with a little help from a couple of aspirin.

Taken to its logical conclusion, this would mean that we hardly need doctors, except for a handful to treat the few diseases and disorders that are neither incurable nor treatable by aspirin.

Yes, that's the "logical" conclusion when "logical" means "tweet tweet bong bong ahhwoooga." Hell, why not split all conditions into those which can be cured with a nice cup of tea and a jam sandwich, and those that can't?

a deep well of paranoia and racism (update)

More from the deep well of racism and paranoia that is The Telegraph's public blog section:

Well,well, a dickie bird told me they now want to take our cross off our "hot cross bun"

If they friggin manage to do that I will personally leave my trademark with a hot iron, across every backside of every immigrant I pass. Yes, in the shape of a cross!

Bonus stupidity in the comments from someone reassuring the blogger that this idea "was shot down, just like 'baa baa rainbow sheep' was shot down."

The problem there is that "baa baa rainbow sheep" story was a homophobic invention of the tabloids - much in the same way, in fact, that the "hot cross bun ban" story is an exercise in racist fearmongering.

By this point, The Telegraph's situation is intractable - unable to do anything about the mountains of hate spewing out of their own pages without inviting screams of outrage over censorship and political correctness (which are already starting to be heard). Anyone get the feeling that the swamped moderation team might be about to go under?

UPDATE: The post quoted above appears to have been scrubbed from the site - though the one comparing homosexuality to paedophilia is still going strong. Nice standards, Telegraph moderators.

gay people: from space, or possibly pine cones

The Telegraph's public blog area really has become a clearing house for The Internet's Most Fuckwitted:

where does homosexuals think they came from? thrown from the space? from pines? ground? how would they have found themselves in such practices if their parents were doing the same?

stone me, call me racist, inscrutable, deadpan i will starve to death than to buy a bottle of water from an institution owned by homosexuals/pedophile nor will eat in the same restaurant with them. its ugly, nasty, vile.

I've actually quoted one of the least foaming sections, with the fewest crazed rhetorical questions. Head on over to The Telegraph - Britain's No. 1 quality newspaper website - if you want to read the rest.

EDIT: Once more, I'm completely unable to detect if this is a genuine foaming nutcase, or a (potentially racist) parody of the same. Reader's vote?

mary whitehouse: a decent old stick who went on a bit (and really, really hated gay people)

Stewart Lamont's conclusion that Mary Whitehouse was merely "a decent old stick who went on a bit" is a particularly cheap and nasty bit of revisionism that ignores, at the very least, her religious fundamentalism, utter hatred of gay people and fondness for censorship and blasphemy laws.

He then jumps all kinds of sharks to link her campaign against "permissiveness" to.. uh.. cases of child abuse at the hands of Catholic Church and Jonathan King:

The fun and freedom which the Swinging Sixties brought to us all came at a terrible price. One man’s freedom to surf the internet was another paedophile’s opportunity to wallow in pictures of naked children. When there are no boundaries, and no things which are forbidden, it all boils down to how far you can go - and there will always be those who want to go as far as they can. That was underlined this week, when the technical capability of cloning a human being went ahead in the face of worldwide disapproval.

Lamont's argument seems to be that there's no possible space between opposing Whitehouse and the religious right's version of sexual morality, and supporting access to child pornography - that rejecting Mary Whitehouse's morals is the equivalant of having no morality at all.

Somehow, the "fun and freedom" of the 60s is then indirectly responsible for sexual abuse at the hands of one of the most repressive and conservative religions on the planet. In short, it's the kind of moralising bollocks that claims anyone who isn't wearing the right robes and inhaling the right incense must automatically be amoral.

The final link to cloning is garbled fearmongering: the claim that "the technical capability of cloning a human being went ahead" doesn't actually make any sense as a sentence, let alone as an account of last week's Embryology Bill.

On a related note, Johann Hari is also less than impressed with the BBC's attempt to scrub Whitehouse's bigotry from public memory - given her loathing for so much of the BBC's output, you'd have hoped a commissioning editor might have paid closer attention.

MPs to campaign for greater public loathing of elected officials

From yesterday's Times:

Days after the High Court ordered the publication of every receipt submitted by MPs, a committee reviewing parliamentary expenses is proposing that they should be able to claim the full £23,000 second-home allowance automatically as an annual “block grant”.

This would end the principle whereby MPs are compensated only for “costs incurred” and give nearly 250 MPs who claim less than £23,000 a substantial tax-free income boost.

It's a tidy dodge: you've forced us to reveal what we claim on individual expenses, so we'll now just claim tens of thousands of pounds in bulk. No receipts, no paper trail, no questions answered.

MPs are also preparing to reopen the battle over salaries, arguing that it is unfair that they are paid £10,000 less than head teachers and £40,000 less than equivalent roles in the private sector.

Seriously, if you're unhappy with the salary paid to you for representing me then get a different job: it's not as though it's hard to people with the skill and ego to qualify as an MP (almost none and a huge amount, respectively). Someone who wasn't a totally venal bastard might also actually consider that the job was some kind of privilege.

I suggest that any MP who thinks that they can earn over £100,000 in the private sector - and is unhappy that they've been prevented from cashing in - should resign their seat and prove it. Perhaps they'd like to try - in the near total absence of training or experience - to get "equivalent" jobs as head teachers?

At the very least,it'll provide for a few months of rich entertainment at no direct cost to the tax-payer.

nadine dorries: am I a hypocrite? well, I'm breathing..

New game, everyone. It's everyone's favourite patron saint of political smears, Nadine Dorries, whose understanding of voting patterns can be added to the extensive list marked "blind ignorance." Seeing as Unity has already dealt with the issue of the supposed Catholic vote during the Crewe by-election, it falls to me to deal with the scraps:

And just before anyone takes a sharp intake of breath and thinks that maybe I am making abortion a political issue – may I just remind people that it was Harriett Harman and Gordon Brown who did that by whipping the vote.

First, repeatedly claiming that the abortion vote was whipped by a Harman-Brownite conspiracy doesn't make it true. It makes you look like an idiot, or like someone lurking in the comment section claiming to be a Labour back-bencher.

Secondly, if we're going to play the game of "who politicised abortion first," then I'd direct your attention back to March (i.e several months before the vote) when Dorries decided that abortion should be made an election issue.

Linking approvingly to the Alive and Kicking Campaign to target MPs over the issue of abortion at the next election, Dorries named four specific women in four separate entries on her "blog" during March and April, each titled "Beyond the Limit." Those four were Margaret Moran, Jacqui Smith, Barbara Follet and Laura Moffatt.

Why pick these four? They're all Labour MPs in marginal seats, who all received money during the candidate selection process from Emily's List - allowing Dorries to simultaneously repeat her most embarassingly transparent smear and threaten them with the possibility of electoral defeat if they didn't vote to support her amendment.

The "Gordon and Harriet did it first, nah nah nah" argument doesn't really hold much water when a) they didn't, and b) you've spent several months doing the exact thing that you now think is utterly reprehensible.

another MMR scare story

My first instinct on reading this story was here we go again: a fresh round of journalism that refuses to recognise its own role in pushing spurious claims about the safety of the MMR vaccine. The debate "won't go away" because awesomely poor journalism refuses to give up on its favourite scare story and exercise a minimum of credulism.

It's reassuring - but not that surprising - to find that the internet is already way out ahead of this recent batch of hackery. Orac at Scienceblogs writes:

David Kirby's there in full force, making up numbers about mitochondrial disorders as he's been doing all along. There are also credulous references to Jenny McCarthy and the "Green Our Vaccines"/"too many too soon" toxin gambit, to the horrible monkey study by Laura Hewitson complete with quotes from an interview, and other vaccination canards. All in all, it's horrible journalism.

Incidentally, this is The Telegraph: expect the Daily Mail's screeching version in a matter of days.

More later this week when I've had a chance to read up.

"a manner unbecoming of an elected MP"

Via Musings of a strange mind, a letter published in a local Bedfordshire newspaper (scroll down):

Reprehensible campaign

Sir - I am writing to express my dismay at the recent conduct of the MP for Mid-Bedfordshire,Nadine Dorries, regarding her bid to reduce the upper limit for abortions from 24 to 20 weeks.

During the course of her campaign, she has behaved in a manner unbecoming of an elected MP.

In attempts to garner support, she has engaged in the promotion of a discredited urban legend as fact (the so-called 'Hand of Hope' myth) and accused those who disagree with her of bias and being in the pay of 'the abortion industry'.

Worse, she has consistently used language intended to appeal to emotion rather than rationality, perhaps because medical studies do not support her position.

The letter ends on this note:

It is my hope that the people of Mid- Bedfordshire will remember her conduct when she seeks re-election.

If Dorries wants to make abortion her chief issue for re-election - as she has suggested should be the case for other MPs - then she'll need to face the consequences of her conduct. That's not a threat, incidentally: that's the knowledge that anyone who googles for her name will have a lot of reading to do.

nadine dorries: in defeat, smear your enemies (updated)

As predicted, the Mail provides a rehashing of Nadine Dorries' repeated claim of a stealth whip during the abortion vote which, once more, is supported by the named testimony of exactly one person: Nadine Dorries - the only person who has ever advanced this version of events.

The story also is stamped with the journalistic hallmarks of a blind smear: "it was claimed last night... prompted claims... allegedly... according to one account..." It's the traditional tactic adopted when a journalist wants to push a story that he or she knows very well to be untrue - smear while leaving room to avoid getting sued.

Given the Mail's unconditional support for Dorries' failed campaign, and Nadine's own excessively well-documented problem with telling the truth and preference for smearing her oponents whenever possible, just how reliable do you think this story is?

UPDATE: And up pops Dorries on her blog to repeat the Mail's story and compare herself to the prostitute with a heart of gold played by Julia Roberts in the film Pretty Woman. Sometimes I don't know how to respond to such comic generosity: I'm now overwhelmed with obvious jokes about Dorries in bed with the religious right.

She also complains that the vote had been politicised, which suggests she doesn't actually know what that word means. Dorries' complaint that a free vote had been made 'political' is a bravado display of hypocrisy, given her use of her blog to harass named Labour MPs over their support for abortion (while promoting a database of voting records on the issue so as to target marginal MPs at the next election).

Suddenly I'm really looking forward to her attempt to get reelected.

UPDATE 2: You might also notice that this follows Dorries' normal pattern for a smear - start with a large false claim (the existence of a three-line whip) and when challenged, drop that claim for another lesser claim or distortion based in fact (pro-choice MPs were organising their supporters) while pretending they mean the same thing.

The crucial thing is that at no stage does Dorries admit when she is clearly and manifestly wrong (such as the claim that no NHS hospital performs abortions over 16 weeks, or that there had been no improvement in neonatal care, or that MPs had been "bought" by the abortion industry etc. etc.). She merely pretends that those claims never existed while behaving as though they had been proven true. It's a pretty impressive display of self-delusion.

advanced scaremongering for the reality-challenged pundit

AN Wilson contributes a few thousand words to the subject of the Embryology Bill which can only be charitably described as entirely fucking moronic. Having described the provisions of the Bill in various inaccurate ways, Wilson arrives here:

What would be the next step? And the next? How far will our scientists persuade Parliament to go over the coming few decades? Allow your minds to stretch into the future and, without any help from H. G. Wells or Aldous Huxley, take yourself into an imaginary Britain of 2058. . . Just occasionally, in those not so far-off days, you will hear stories of families who have insisted on hanging on to their men.

It is only in remote, primitive parts of the country, of course, such as the Welsh mountains and the Outer Hebrides, that these pathetic specimens of humanity survive. Their old grey beards and gravelly voices would frighten the children in the bright new conurbations of the Midlands and the South, where male human beings have not been seen for two generations.

There are actually a few more hundred words of "bed-time stories to scare social conservatives with" - before Wilson asks a superlative rhetorical question:

Is this a futuristic fantasy nightmare? Maybe, but not as exaggerated as all that.

Maybe? Maybe? There's room for some kind of doubt that AN Wilson isn't a powerful seer able to predict the future?

You'll be delighted to discover that self-induced panic over the supposed coming extinction of men is a well-established genre amongst right-wing pundits with a precarious grip on reality. For a master-class in this kind of paranoia, look no further than Melanie Phillips.

nadine dorries: age shall not wither her (problem with telling the truth)

As cheerfully predicted, here's the Daily Mail's Amanda Platell repeating whatever Nadine Dorries has told her without any regard for something so boring as fact-checking:

Mr Brown's whips dragooned their MPs into opposing the change and in one of the more shameful moments in the history of our democracy, Labour

MPs linked arms and formed a human barrier to stop their MPs voting for a reduction. Frank Field was one of the few Labour MPs with the guts and the decency to cross the line and vote with his conscience.

Yes, Frank Field.. and another 40-60 other MPs and junior ministers (including several Labour whips, depending on the vote).

Once more, ask yourself why only Nadine Dorries - and those gullible enough to believe her - is pushing this version of events, and that not a single, solitary other person has yet come forward to support her. On the contrary, we've heard from a pro-life MP who voted with Dorries stating that her claim of a three-line whip is "completely false." Could it be that she is some kind of liar?

Today's extra detail ("MPs linked arms and formed a human barrier") which, again, has not been mentioned, let alone confirmed by anyone else, suggests that we're due yet another story pushing what we have to assume is a bare-faced lie.

For the sake of clarity, it's highly possible that MPs (on both the pro-choice and pro-life side) were running their own private operations to garner support for their own positions, as they are entirely entitled to do; only a complete idiot (lit. "Nadine Dorries") would make the jump to claiming conspiracy.

mehdi kazemi granted asylum

Some excellent news that I missed midweek:

A gay man who faces the death penalty in Iran has won asylum in the UK after protests prompted the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, to reconsider his case. Family and supporters of Mehdi Kazemi, now 20, welcomed the decision yesterday not to send him back to Iran where his boyfriend was arrested by the state police and executed for sodomy.

You may recall the Home Office rejected his original request using the mind-boggling logic that, while it was recognised that Iran executes homosexuals, there was no "systematic" repression of gay men and lesbians.

Today's leading article in The Independent picks up the detail:

But when Mr Kazemi fled to the Netherlands to seek asylum there, his application was rejected on the same grounds; no one, he was told, was executed "solely" because they were gay; he would be safe in Iran if he was discreet about his sexuality. This was a disgraceful judgment. Homosexuality is illegal in many Muslim countries, but in Iran the punishments for same-sex relations between consenting adults in private are particularly brutal.

On the testimony of "four righteous men", homosexuals are slowly strangled by being hanged in public from cranes in the street. Human rights groups estimate that some 4,000 gay men and lesbians, some as young as the age of 15, have been executed in the past 30 years. Many more have been given beatings, 100 lashes.

Follow the link to read the rest.

The minor point of concern is that asylum has only been granted for five years: there's a chance that an entirely fresh campaign will have to be mounted all over again, and with a less sympathetic Home secretary (if such a thing can be imagined).

an uncomplicated man

Richard Littlejohn remains the reliable promoter of stupid rhetorical questions:

How come only MPs are allowed consciences?

All this week, MPs have been exercising their right to vote with their consciences over late-term abortion, artificial insemination for lesbians and Half Man Half Biscuit embryo research.

Meanwhile, a couple of miles down the road from Westminster, a registrar has been fighting for her right not to act against her own religious beliefs.

Why is there a difference? Because MPs are employed to pass judgement on various pieces of legislation: that's their job. Registrars are expected to apply the law without fear of abuse or favour - and that's their job.

"the hon. lady has asserted many things to be facts that are not"

Along with various others, I picked up on Dawn Primarolo's polite-enough-to-cut-glass assertion that Nadine Dorries was a liar during Tuesday's liveblog.

At the time Dorries expressed surprised that she might have said anything that wasn't entirely accurate (to the sound of me laughing bitterly at the TV) so Unity has helpfully taken on the full job of dissecting, line by line, Dorries' very public problem with telling the truth. It's a full-service fisk: enjoy.

dynasty

Regardless of party politics, it's generally preferable when parliamentary seats don't have the appearance of being passed from one family member to another:

Party sources say, however, that David Cameron, the Tory leader, is considering a mid-summer poll to capitalise on a victory in Crewe, which would be the party's first by-election gain for 30 years.

The late Gwyneth Dunwoody held the Crewe seat for Labour with a majority of 7,000 at the last election, a margin which should be safe enough to allow her daughter, Tamsin, to succeed her on the benches at Westminster.

But after a botched class-based campaign by Labour and amid widespread voter disaffection with Gordon Brown, the Tories are now widely expected to overturn that majority.

I'm out this evening, but I'm presuming that it's really a question of whether Labour come in second - or even third after the Lib Dems.

correction

In the name of honesty, I should mention that there was an embarassingly misleading typo in a post from last week that referred to a poll citing 13 weeks for premature survival. The poll actually referred to 23 weeks; the transcription error was completely mine and I didn't spot it until today. My apologies - and thanks to the reader who pointed it out.

Survival rates at 23 weeks are still very low and have not shown improvement; survival at 13 weeks is, of course, non-existent. Had I thought the poll was making the latter claim, I would have upgraded the claim of push-polling to simple lying. Still, my apologies for confusion caused.

certainly not any kind of sore loser

Somewhat confusingly, Nadine Dorries claims - once more - that there was no free vote on abortion before declaring

A high point for me was that during the evening Labour MP Frank Field came into the 20 week lobby and said my speech had convinced him to change his mind.

Yes, it was the kind of three line whip where Labour MPs like Frank Field were free to..uhmm.. vote as they saw fit.

In fact, so harsh was that (non-existent) whipping operation that 60 Labour MPs (including some 22 junior ministers) voted in favour of 22 weeks - and 44 Labour MPs (including 15 junior ministers) voted with Nadine for 20 weeks. Why, it's almost as though Dorries has no idea what a three line whip actually is.

Further "details" are threatened over the weekend (i.e. an obliging feature in the Daily Mail.) It is, of course, entirely coincidental that the only named person currently pushing this version of events is the noted fabulist, Nadine Dorries.

It would be nice to move on, but I think we've probably got another week of this kind of revisionism - stay tuned.

business as usual

The Daily Express reports that compaints to the Press Complaints Commission have hit a record high, repeating PCC chairman Sir Christoper Meyer's argument that:

There was no evidence that the rise in the number of complaints received was due to a collapse in standards - rather, it was likely that the increase was due to other factors, such as the extension of the PCC's remit to cover editorial material on websites by newspapers and magazines.

So it has nothing to do with events like this, then:

The Daily Express editor, Peter Hill, left the Press Complaints Commission board partly because of the row between Express Newspapers and the Newspaper Publishers Association, according to the chairman of the press watchdog. [...]

In March the Daily Express, Daily Star, Sunday Express and Daily Star Sunday made front page and high court apologies and paid the McCann family £550,000 in damages over a string of false stories about the four-year-old's disappearance.

In a way, it's completely accurate to say there has been no collapse in standards - this is the British tabloid press just doing what it has always done. The only difference is that they're getting hauled up over it ever so slightly more often.

You'll note that the McCann family had to go to court to get an apology and damages; Sir Christopher and the toothless PCC must have been busy that year.. uh.. day.

just wrong

At the very least, the Mail's editorial has the virtue of being completely wrong in the first two sentences:

So that's it, then. By a majority of 71, our parliamentary representatives have decided it should remain legal to destroy fully formed, sentient and viable human life in the womb.

Ah, no. By any sense of the words, a 24-week foetus is not a "fully formed" human life. It's a 24-week old foetus.

stupid in defeat

Hey, it's that obviously false smear about a stealth Labour whip - repeated by Nadine Dorries and happily printed in the Mail:

Though all parties offered a free vote, those battling for a reduction accused Labour whips of ' dragooning' their MPs to oppose changes to the law.

Tory MP Nadine Dorries, leader of the campaign for a 20-week limit, said: 'The Labour MPs were on a three-line whip to attend the chamber. When they arrived, because normally only a third of them vote on this issue, they were dragooned off into the 24-week lobby.'

I'm presuming it's the sky-high cost of newsprint that meant no-one could be interviewed to rebut that accusation, or explain from which sunless canyon Dorries has been able to extract her latest facts.

Elsewhere in the Mail is the attempt to isolate liberal Tories. Here's the headline:

Tory backlash as George Osborne breaks ranks to back Government in 22-week abortion bill

You might think that claiming that someone has "broken ranks" on a free vote is stupidly dishonest - not to say hypocritical when you've just accused the other side of running a stealth whip on the same vote.

And what does that backlash sound like?

Sources close to Mr Cameron said he was "entirely relaxed" about Mr Osborne's stance.

"This was an absolutely free vote and simply a genuine difference of opinion between them," said one.

A spokesman for Mr Osborne said: "George has never made any secret of the fact that he is socially liberal in his views."

Yes, well.. uhmm.. let those stern words be a warning to everyone.

how many, indeed

From Hansard (via They Work For You), here's that moment last night when Mark Pritchard jumped the shark:

I often wonder, given Britain's skills shortage, how many of the 200,000 aborted last year could have been the engineers and maths teachers that we need. Indeed—and not on a light note—how many could have been the English cricketers and football players that we need? A lot of talent has been lost.

That was his closing argument: if we banned abortion, we might win more sporting competitions.

Classy.

EDIT: Pritchard was also the MP who repeated the entirely false and reprehensible claim about the increased risk of breast cancer due to abortion, while also misrepresenting the research on the risk of mental illness. Really very happy that he lost last night.

morans unite!!!!

Lifted from the comments to a post over at Iain Dale's blog where he half-heartedly raises the spectre of a stealth Labour whip operation last night, here's Tom Harris MP:

Iain - sorry to bang on about this again, but I can assure you there was no whipping operation, except by those backbenchers on both sides of the argument. Nadine's claim that Labour MPs were on a three-line whip "to attend the chamber" is completely false, since there is no such thing as a whip to attend, only to vote.

The crucial evidence against this nonsense is that supporting Nadine in her amendment - other than myself - were at least three Labour whips, including the formidable Tommy McAvoy. Case closed.

Then, from further down the comments, an anonymous commenter proving that reason happens to other people:

Of course the Labour Party were whipped. Those useless morans [sic] need to be told how and when to vote, they have to mind of their own!

Yes, some people are indeed helplessly "moranic."

rapid pre-response

Shamelessly scooped from Andy's twitter stream:

Nadine Dorries Bingo

1) Parliament has voted against 'the will of the people', all of whom agree with Nadine Dorries.

2) Gordon Brown and his platoon of whips literally forced mps to vote against poor Nadine against their will

3) Crewe and Nantwich will be a 'stinging rebuke' that conclusively proves that Nadine Dorries is the new Moses

4) Nad will not be shifted from her course by bullies & abortion lovers - she has right (and god) on her side.

Apologies to the noble creators of bingo.

that word does not mean what you think it does

The Mail has a new "debate" section, asking balanced questions such as "Why does Harriet Harman hate marriage?"

In other words, a fresh contribution to the "have you stopped beating your wife?" school of journalism previously monopolised by The Daily Express. Delightful.

the claim to majority opinion

Following last night's defeat, today's right-wing meme is that Parliament has ignored the will of the people. Here's the Mail's headline:

MPs defy public opinion to keep abortion limit at 24 weeks in Commons vote

I'm pretty sure we'll hear it from various voices in the pro-life camp, not least because repeated claims to public support for a reduction had been made in the campaign leading to the vote - and in particular that women supported further restriction.

As previous discussion of the polling concerned might have predicted, one rather large problem with that claim is the brand new MORI poll for Marie Stopes (which I missed yesterday) showing strong support amongst women aged 18-49 for access to abortion between 20 and 24 weeks:

New survey of British women’s attitudes to abortion published today: Sixty-one per cent of British women of child bearing age say there are circumstances in which they think a woman should have the right to access an abortion between 20 and 24 weeks.

The interesting thing about the Marie Stopes poll is that it did not address the issue of premature birth viability (as in previous push-polling) but framed the issue in terms of the circumstances in which women might seek late abortion, circumstances reflecting real, complex lives.

In other words, the kinds of circumstances that previous polling - most frequently commissioned by pro-life groups - had ignored.

When presented with the genuine reasons why a woman might seek late abortion, women tend to support that right. As such, the claim made by the socially-conservative right to speak for women on this issue should be considered with an even more substantial helping of scepticism than usual.

parliament rejects restrictions on abortion

Ahead of more detailed analysis tomorrow, here's your quick summary. The headline news is that the attempt to reduce the week limit on abortion has failed.

We're still waiting to hear whether the requirement for two doctors signatures on abortion will also be lifted - turning a good night for the pro-choice movement into an even better one.

The wider picture is that the determined push by social conservatives to amend the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill has failed across the board - on the question of hybrid embryos, on the issue of the role of the father and over the attempt to restrict access to abortion.

The 200-plus MPs who were supposed to support a 20 week limit on abortion entirely failed to appear - if anything, that support appeared for the tentative compromise of 22 weeks.

In other words, Nadine Dorries' campaign - with the explicit support of the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph - failed to convince. It couldn't happen to a nicer politician.

Frankly, it's possible the way in which she conducted that campaign (coupled with the politics of those who were her primary supporters) may have actually firmed up pro-choice support, while rendering her own political standing toxic. Again, pleasant news.

abortion debate voting begins

It's the first division - we're off again.

- The first vote is on an amendment to clause one to reduce the limit on abortion to 12 weeks.

Amendment fails, 71 to 393.

- Now voting on a new clause three, which would reduce the week limit to 16 weeks.

(Update - BBC Parliament has it as clause three, but the text of the bill and the amendment suggest it's just clause one again.

Update 2 - Nope, I'm wrong.)

Amendment fails, 84 to 387.

- Next up is an amendment to introduce a new clause five, which would reduce the week limit to 20 weeks. This is Nadine Dorries' amendment, and the first big vote of the evening.

Amendment fails, 190 to 332.

So that's Dorries failing to make her threatened/promised 200 MPs in support of her position.

Aside: there are 646 members of the Commons in total. So where is everybody? Is this issue just not that important?

- Now a vote on a new clause eight, which would require doctors to provide written information on life expectancy, developmental outcomes and treatment options for foetuses which will be born with physical or mental abnormalities amounting to serious handicap. That information would have to be provided before a termination could take place.

Amendment fails, 173 to 309.

Okay, I think this is the final major vote on abortion restrictions - this time to reduce the limit to 22 weeks.

Amendment fails, 233 to 304.

The abortion week limit stays where it is: a great result, and - as a bonus - a total rejection of Nadine Dorries.

The only thing left to see is whether the need for two signatures can be lifted.

that problem with the truth

If you're not following the rambling liveblog below, Dawn Primarolo pretty much just called Nadine Dorries a liar. She had to use polite parliamentary language, but just for a second it looked like live-action blogging. Tee hee.

abortion debate liveblogging

Two opposition amendments requiring fertility clinics to consider the need for a father have been rejected: the bill stands as before, requiring only the consideration of supportive parenting.

The debate now moves on to issue of abortion - here we go. I'll be dipping in and out all evening as work allows.

19.16: Edward Leigh has made the first smear of the evening, calling the pro-choice movement a "multi-million pound industry" of vested interests. That was quick.

And he's just entirely misrepresented the recent statement made by Royal College of Psychiatrists on the subject of mental illness (that's misdirection 12 on Dorries' list, incidentally.)

Now he's talking about the week limit in Europe while managing to avoid mentioning access on demand.

And to close, he claims to speak on behalf of unborn foetuses.

19.40: Claire Curtis-Thomas - pretty coherent and honest for quite a long time but then.. "I can't disagree with the body of evidence" - but, hey, it sounds like she's going to anyway.

Oh, and she would prefer 12 weeks but her argument is apparently based on viability at 20 weeks. Confusing.

19.44: Mark Pritchard - calling for a late-term abortion on prime-time television. Now that's not an attempt to provoke a response based on revulsion, nosirree.

Oh, but he's calling for better sex education and better contraceptive services.

But now he's playing feminist historian. Hmm.. and making claims about women in his constituency that can't be true unless he's paid for some private polling out of his own pocket.

Fuck me - he just repeated the wholly untrue claim about the risk of breast cancer. That's one of the hoariest and most reprehensible lies of the pro-life movement. I can't believe that someone got up in Parliament to repeat it. Disgusting.

19.54: And now more specious arguments based on pain being felt (apparently without any knowledge of the research involved).. then 4D images.. then the kicking of babies in the womb.. more misrepresentation of the risks of mental health problems. These arguments all seem oddly familiar. Why?

They're all from Nadine Dorries' bogus list.

20.00: Holy crap. He just said that aborted babies could have been much needed members of England's cricket team. WTF? That's his closing argument?

20.04: Chris McCafferty - arguing that restriction will likely lead to more pressure for illegal abortions from women acting out of desperation.

"Abortion should be a private decision between a woman and her doctor..."

"Why is it so difficult to give the power to decide to those most directly involved?"

"The best way to reduce the number of abortions is to improve access to contraception and make sex education compulsory in schools."

20.17: Mike Penning, Shadow Health Minister starts to speak in favour of reduction. Echoes support for Cafferty's comments on contraception

Aside: if we're going to see so much cross party support for improved contraceptive services, can we.. uhmm.. have some, please?

Desmond Swayne stands up - and apparently speaks in tongues for a short time. He sits down again.

Penning: "Sex education is dramatically important." Says current provision is useless - that education given to the military is more proactive than that given to children.

20.32: Dawn Primarolo: "It is dangerous to move from personal anecdote to general assertion as the basis for change."

Argues that viability based on evidence has always been the primary basis for discussing the issue of abortion.

Iris Robinson makes spurious claim about Primarolo denying pro-life objections... about five minutes after allowing Anne Widdecombe to speak. Our elected representatives aren't at their most impressive this evening..

20.52: Need to take a break. Hopefully back on later.

21.20: Nadine Dorries is on her feet.

"I am pro-choice."

She'd like the morning-after pill free on demand in every school? This is brand new - and something I don't think she's ever mentioned before. Possibly because it wouldn't go down so well with her evangelical chums.

She's telling the story of the abortion she witnessed when she worked as a nurse twenty-odd years ago (see above argument for not making anecdotes the basis of general principle.)

She mentions the EPICure and Trent studies - then takes the clever debating measure of ignoring them completely.

Dorries isn't convincing anyone - she's become too much of a lightning rod.

She's making an argument on the "right to life" of an unborn foetus based on feeling pain. This is a new argument - it certainly doesn't appear on her list of 20 reaons for 20 weeks.

Nope, she's still just pissing people off.

Hah. She's repeating her much amended claim about abortion after 16 weeks not being performed on the NHS. Complains about the "private industry" surrounding abortion.

Challenged to prove that we're running out of doctors. She can't - what she offers is a misdirection.

Finishes on 4D imaging research and Professor Sunny Anand. Well, we know the problems with that research..

21.40: Dawn Primarolo has just called Nadine Dorries a liar. Sweeeeeeet. "She has asserted many things as fact which are not this evening."

Okay, I'm taking another break. I'll try and make it back for the voting later.

preview

As a small taste of what's to come tonight, there's a DUP MP standing up in Parliament arguing that the law should respect her belief that man was made in the image of God, and that Eve was made from Adam's rib (to which someone nearby helpfully replied just loud enough to be heard, "but that's cloning.")

This is going to be a long evening. I'll try and stick around to blog the major speeches, but it looks like it'll be pretty late before we reach any votes on the abortion week limit.

nadine dorries: some of my best friends are fundamentalists

Waa, waa, waa. Actually, the claim has never been that Nadine Dorries herself is a religious fundamentalist - but rather that conservative religious groups (some of whom are fundamentalist) are her primary supporters who, at least in part, fund her personal campaign activity against the abortion week limit.

None of that is in any way in dispute: Dorries herself recognised the strength of the contribution of the religious right to her work when interviewed for Dispatches on Channel 4 last night. In fact, she praised that support as making the campaign possible in the first place - even to the point of providing draft amendments to legislation for Dorries to submit.

As best, the simplistic attempt to separate herself from those associations by raising the straw man of her own beliefs is disengenuous - dishonest, if you prefer.

Finally, for what is now your daily dose of Nadine Dorries caught in an obvious smear, see Sadie's Tavern.

more selective emphasis

Iain Dale's position on the abortion week limit is a little confusing - and rather too selective in building a case:

I unreservedly back 20 weeks and I make no bones about the fact that I would like to see it lower than that. Virtually every other European country has a limit of between 12 and 14 weeks. Their abortion rates are much lower, so is the level of sexual activity among under age teenagers.

Uhm, is this an argument that more stringent access to abortion reduces teen sex? If not, what's the point of that mentioning it?

In any case, it's an argument without any real evidence to support it - limiting access to abortion merely tends to increase the pressure on illegal abortions. In fact, a quick read of WHO statistics for countries with the strictest controls on abortion tend to reveal very high levels of abortion.

It's also important to note that the lower week limits in Europe are neither consistent or straightforward: at the very least, such limits also frequently come with early abortion on demand. See Unity for discussion of both issues on a Nadine-related post from last week (that you've probably read by now).

Still, on with Dale:

It is a proven fact that foetuses can survive at 20 weeks - not all, but some do.

But most don't. Only an exceptionally small minority survive, and often with severe health problems. It's misleading to try and suggest anything else.

If you live in an area with a hospital with superb neo-natal facilities the survival rates are obviously much higher than if you live in a catchment area without one.

Well, yes: great hospitals get great results, and that's what makes them great. However, the overwhelming majority of women cannot get access to anything like a superb neo-natal unit.

Furthermore - and incredibly importantly - all of the above also omits or ignores any of the very real reasons why women might need to seek late abortion.

Dale does raise the interesting question of Tory strategy - that while there are multiple amendments targeted at 20 weeks and below, no-one is pushing for 22 weeks in the name of compromise. Given that many of those pushing for a reduction have admitted that this is a wedge strategy aimed at further future restriction, anyone think of a good reason why not? Too small a first step?

UPDATE: Actually, just read The Daley Dozen Mistakes.

liveblogging: Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill

We've reached the first division on the Embryology Bill, voting on clause 4 which would allow the creation of hybrid embryos under licence. The list of amendments for this evening and tomorrow afternoon can be found here.

8.48: Edward Leigh's amendment to ban all research using hybrid embryos has been defeated.

Next up is an opposition amendment limiting the kinds of hybrid embryos which can be created - specifically, outlawing embryos made by fertilising a human egg with animal sperm or vice versa.

19.01: Mark Simmons' amendment defeated, with a government majority of 63.

19.30: Evan Harris has opened the next stage of the debate, speaking in favour of "saviour siblings" and various other amendments. The first vote on this clause is due at around 10pm.

19.34: And he's beating up Dawn Primarolo for giving contradictory legal advice about the future therapeutic use of successful technologies when there's only a research license available.

She's saying that she will meet him over a cup of tea but won't actually listen to anything. He's not happy. She's saying it's outrageous to suggest she's not taking his objections seriously. Perhaps it was the cup of tea idea that made her seem less than committed..

Updates as the evening continues..

Derailed completely by utterly terrifying documentary on British Christian fundamentalism - with Stephen Green threatening a religious civil war in the UK in the near future because of the "yoke of Islam.". And there's Nadine Dorries right in the middle, happily in bed with people who think the world is 4,000 years old and believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Fuck me, that was depressing.

nadine dorries: late abortion is murder

Kira Cochrane's interview feature in the G2 does a great job of bringing the genuine and worrying questions about Nadine Dorries' attitudes toward abortion to a wider audience. You should go and read the whole thing, but I want to pull out a few paragraphs which inform the things we've learnt about Dorries' campaign over the last few months.

Cochrane picks up on Dorries' admission in The Spectator last October that she would prefer a nine-week limit to abortion:

In that same comment, she says that she does "not stand at zero weeks", and she emphasises to me that she is neither pro-choice nor anti-abortion, yet my suspicions are raised when she refers to a late-term abortion that she recently observed as "murder" and refers to abortion in general as "taking a life" (when I challenge her on this she says that she meant "taking a potential life, a life, or a potential life").

The continued pretence that Dorries does not feel particularly strongly one way or another about abortion takes another major hit as she repeats some of the most stringently pro-life rhetoric available. In fact, it's highly familiar rhetoric pushed by the religious groups who campaign for a total ban on abortion, and that are coincidentally her primary supporters.

Cochrane is also quick to pick up on the pseudo-scientific arguments pushed by the 20 weeks campaign - the emotive but factually barren ultrasound images of foetues, and that news that "babies are now undergoing surgery in the womb under 24 weeks" is both heartening and "completely irrelevant."

Finally, and as you've probably come to expect from the last months of posts, it becomes clear that Dorries' position is based largely in deliberate igorance. Here's Cochrane again:

...I am surprised by her reply when I ask her how many women she has spoken to who have had late-term abortions. "I haven't spoken to that many," she says, "apart from on radio chat shows, that kind of thing."

It's a shame she didn't talk to more women who have had late-term abortions - if you had tabled an amendment which could significantly change the course of someone's life, wouldn't you seek out the stories of those it would affect?

To call it a shame is a major understatement: it's the further sign that Dorries is someone who has a personal moral agenda that she wishes to advance, regardless of the lives or experiences of other women.

Dorries' preconceptions - based, by her own admission, in almost total ignorance of actual experience - also reveal the low opinion she has of women who seek abortion:

When I ask Dorries why she thinks women have late-term abortions, she boils it down to "procrastination... when someone goes past a 12-week barrier and they're still thinking about whether they're going to or not, there seems to be an element of procrastination that comes into that.

"Everyone looks on terminations as this life-liberating thing that women go through," she says. I ask her who has described abortion specifically as "life-liberating" to her, and she says "Oh God, well, a lot of the pro-choicers who I argue with do. They say, "Get your hands out of my uterus, women have fought for this liberation for years'." She laughs for the first time in the interview.

Caught in a lie and unable to name anyone at all, Dorries lapses into smearing her opponents with an obviously false claim about their beliefs and motivations. A familiar tactic, no?

So, here we go again. Dorries thinks that late abortion is comparable to murder and that abortion is the equivalent of taking a life but wants us to believe that she is neither pro-choice or pro-life.

She thinks that the fact that women have fought for the right to access to abortion is laughable and that the main reason women have late abortions (which for Dorries is now apparently after 12 weeks) is because they can't make up their minds. And she's now campaigning for restrictions on abortion while claiming to be acting in the best interests of women.

If you haven't already written to your MP, now would be the time.

liveblogging the embryology debate tonight / tomorrow

No updates until later tonight - I'm trying to clear the decks at work so that I can liveblog the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill this evening and tomorrow. For anyone thinking about following the debates online or via the Parliament channel, here's the timetable courtesy of the BBC:

The creation of hybrid embryos: These are mixes of animal and human tissue. Scientists say it would help tackle diseases such Parkinson's. Opponents say it is tampering with nature and is unethical. Debate from 1530 BST Monday, vote due at about 1830 BST.

Saviour siblings: These are babies born from embryos selected because they are a tissue match for a sick older brother or sister with a genetic condition. Supporters say it helps children who have exhausted all other hope of treatment. Opponents fear children are created as saviour siblings alone, not because they are a wanted child. Debate on Monday from about 1830 BST, with vote at about 2200 BST.

Role of fathers in fertility treatment: Would end the requirement for IVF clinics to consider the "welfare" of any child created in terms of need for a father. Those in favour say it would end bar to lesbian couples and single women. Opponents say it denigrates the role of fathers in a child's life. Debate from 1530 BST Tuesday, with vote at about 1830 BST.

The upper limit for abortion: Amendments have been put down to the bill to cut from 24 weeks the time limit for abortions. Supporters say babies born at 24 weeks are increasingly likely to survive. Opponents says studies do not support that. Debate on Tuesday from 1830 BST, with votes at about 2200 BST.

Catch you all later.

also bad with numbers

Nadine Dorries is a liar, or cannot count. Possibly both. First, here's Dorries in The Telegraph, feeling sorry for herself:

You would think that, being an advocate of safe, free and swift access to abortion in the first trimester, I might have avoided the horrors that usually befall any MP who so much as whispers the word "abortion" in Westminster.

This is laughable. An advocate of safe, free and swift access to abortion? This from a woman who has routinely opposed any measures to make access to early abortion easier? If she's throwing her support behind the attempt to remove the need for two doctor's signatures then she's apparently forgotten to mention it publicly.

For the sake of clarity:

Trimester:
tri·mes·ter (trī-mĕs'tər, trī'mĕs'-)
1. A period or term of three months.

In other words, around 12 weeks. Then here's Dorries from last October (via Unity).

You are right about one thing, I do want to go lower than 20 weeks - I would settle for the European average of 13 weeks, but would prefer 9.

It's also helpful to remember that she allies herself with those who oppose all abortion on principle - and that she's made no attempt to distance herself from those hardline views. Oh, and there's also a post at Conservative Home, arguing for "20 weeks not 22 weeks" which conveniently omits to mention that she's signed up to support 16 weeks but would prefer something much, much lower. Pick a number, any number?

Is there absolutely anyone out there who can possibly believe that Dorries is in any way sincere, consistent or believable when she talks about her beliefs about abortion?

not lowri turner

I don't really have to go further than the headline provided by a sub-editor for Lowri Turner's latest column. It's a time saving device I suggest you adopt in the future:

Feminists created Mr Sensitive, but what we REALLY want is a man to fix the car

I'll take a few brief questions.

Question: is Lowri Turner now speaking on behalf of all women?

Answer: Yes, the paperwork came through. It is, I'm sure you'll agree, a huge relief to have the country's diverse experiences of womanhood channelled through one newspaper pundit.

Q: Okay. So I'm to understand that sensitive men can't fix cars?

A: Actually, emotional sensitivity has nothing to do with mechanical aptitude. You could have both traits, or neither. The idea here seems to be "sensitive men are namby pampy weaklings who can't change oil for fear of triggering buried memories of seeing Bambi for the first time and crying on the bonnet." You get the general idea.

Q: But do women want a man to fix their cars?

A: Sure, sometimes, because most women aren't mechanics. And neither are most men. Hence the job of mechanic.

Q: But what about the penis?

A: An important issue, but not actually a specialist tool for fixing automobiles or endowing the beholder with eldritch knowledge forbidden to the vagina-bearing.

Q: Can you also provide some colourful national stereotypes to support your point of view, inadvertently revealing your fondness for immigrants as a source of cheap labour?

A: No.

feminism to blame, again

The most recent round of crime statistics produced another round of journalism bemoaning the state of modern women. There remains an in written rule that while violent or drunken men remain regrettable, only violent or drunken women are remarkable.

The underlying belief seems to be that male antisocial behaviour is an expression of some kind of core masculinity - men drink and fight. Consequently, women - who should apparently give birth and collect hat boxes - are criticised not so much for drinking and fighting but for betraying their sex. The drinking and fighting is particulalry shocking because women are still supposed to be demure - still routinely expected to be the fairer sex.

The other pundit trope is that feminism is to blame for making the female imitation of male behaviour acceptable. Again, special reproach is reserved for women who have squandered their chance at equality by aping the lowest social standards - ignoring both that this is minority behaviour, that men are apparently setting that standard in the first place and that women are still fulfilling the vast majority of traditional care-giving roles in our society. And women are also still doing that giving birth thing. But apart from that, feminism has allowed women to turn into men.

The high priests of punditry tend to loop-the-loop completely and frame modern feminism as forcing women to behave badly. Yes, it's Melanie Phillips:

On top of all this, however, modern feminism has added an extra and unforeseen twist.

Little did those pioneers who fought for equal rights for women dream that one outcome would be equal wrongs by women. Yet that is precisely what has happened. This is because, like the rest of the equality agenda, modern feminism recast equal rights as "identicality".

The notion that men and women behaved differently because they had different expectations and pressures was deemed to be sexist and discriminatory.

Equality meant that men and women had to lead identical lives.

They just had to. Why? Because Melanie said so.

Phillips is actually on great form, honing in on the most high-profile cases of female violent crime featured on screaming front pages (a tiny, tiny percentage of mainly male crime overall) before stating:

The Government's claim that overall crime is falling, as this week's statistics also reportedly show, bears scant relation to everyday life. Such figures - even in the supposedly authoritative British Crime Survey - are highly selective or manipulated.

Selective and manipulative - I think I've found a new promotional slogan for someone.

more push-polling on abortion attitudes

I've criticised previous polls on abortion week limits as an exercise in public opinion that have absolutely nothing to with improvements in medical science.

The Christian Institute's recent poll is a perfect example, avoiding any mention of the rationale for the current 24 week limit and opting for a comparison to other countries. Their question read:

In Great Britain the upper limit for abortion is 24 weeks. By comparison in most other EU countries the limit is 12 weeks or lower. In light of this difference what do you think the limit should be in Brtiain?

Quite simply, this is a push-poll where the question is intended to create the impression that the UK is wildly out of step with our nearest cultural neighbours. As you have probably come to expect, the attempt to suggest that Britain is the "most liberal" in Europe is achieved by ignoring the true complexity of the situation.

It depends on managing to avoid mentioning that many European countries women have a genuine system of abortion on request provided they exercise that right within the first 12 weeks after conception. Do not collect two doctor's signatures, go straight to the clinic - a far more liberal, direct and honest system than in the UK.

Beyond that point, countries across Europe have legislation that allows abortion after week 12 for a variety of reasons. Here's heavily Catholic Spain:

GROUNDS/GESTATIONAL LIMITS

Up to 12 weeks - Rape

Up to 22 weeks - If the fetus, if carried to term, will suffer from severe physical or mental defects

No limit - If the abortion is necessary to avert a serious risk to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman

(source)

And here's Germany:

Up to 12 weeks - If the woman declares to be in a state of distress (in practice: on request after counselling)

- Rape or other sexual crime

Up to 22 weeks from conception - To avert the danger of a grave impairment of the physical or emotional state of health of the pregnant woman (and the danger cannot be averted in another way which is reasonable for her)

- Note: the mental health risks for the woman include the ones caused by fetal malformation, and general health risks caused by adverse socio-economic conditions.

So that's abortion permissable on the grounds of poverty.

As Unity says - having already covered this subject in detail in a related "she who cannot be trusted" post - "this 12 weeks in Europe thing is much more complicated than it looks."

In other words, the attempt to suggest that Britain is out of line with the rest of Europe conceals a raft of different legislation, many parts of which are far more liberal. In shorter words, the poll is not honest.

(For extra credit, note the number of other ways in which Britain is thought to be more liberal than the rest of Europe - and how this is seen as a good thing. The fact that different countries have different laws is not a compelling argument that we should copy them.)

consistency not her strong point

Via Unity posting at Liberal Conspiracy, I notice that Nadine Dorries - campaigning vigorously for 20 weeks because of all of that compelling research which says 20 is juuuuust right - has also signed up to support an amendment for 16 weeks.

Perhaps someone would like to ask her which bit of her own argument for 20 weeks which was so unconvincing.

pause

FYI, knocked out by food poisoning so not sure if I'll be posting today..

push-polling on attitudes towards the abortion week limit

(UPDATE: There was a typo in this post that had the poll citing 13 weeks for premature survival instead of 24; the error was completely mine and I didn't spot it until today. My apologies. Survival rates at 23 weeks are still very low and have not shown improvement; survival at 13 weeks is, of course, non-existent.)

The claim that "nearly two thirds of the public and more than three-quarters of women support a reduction in the 24-week upper age limit" deserves a little closer examination. It stems from a question in a 2005 YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph.

The question read:

At the moment abortion is legal in Britain up to the 24th week of pregnancy. However, doctors can now save the lives of premature babies born as early as 23 weeks. From what you know, what do you think the legal limit for abortion should be?

The polling question - at very best - gives a false impression about the actual survival rates of premature babies.

Missing is any mention whatsoever of the very low survival rate for premature births outside of a small number of specialist units; also missing is any indication of the physical and mental disabilities that can arise from premature birth. Instead, there's the simple suggestion that premature babies can be routinely saved.

(Interestingly, a further question in the survey offered the following statement: "Human embyros are human beings from the moment of conception and should be given the same legal protection as new-born babies." Only 16% agreed - in other words, an overwhelming rejection of the logic advanced by so many of those on the religious right pushing for stringent restrictions on abortion.)

assessing the clinical evidence for premature birth survival rates (updated)

Unity provides a very clear, clean explanation of the clinical evidence for premature birth survival - and why it doesn't support a reduction in the week limit for abortion. Go and read it now.

UPDATE: Oh, sweet jeebus - I must have missed this over the weekend. Here's Nadine Dorries attempting to claim the direct opposite with much less competence. First, there's some kind of suggestion of conspiracy:

We were somewhat surprised to see that the article was not in this week's paper edition of the BMJ which many doctors did not receive until Saturday. Why then rush to get it onto the web and into the public domain?

The BMJ editorial said that upper time limits were to be debated in the House of Commons 'this year'. What it didn't say is that they are actually to be debated and voted on in just ten days, on 20 May.

Yes, it's unforgiveable that we should pass laws based on the most recently available research. How dare the BMJ attempt to influence the debate through the use of fact? It's outrageous! etc. etc.

She continues:

What then of the science? The one thing everybody agrees on, and confirmed by this study, is that survival rates at 24 and 25 weeks have improved enormously as a result of advances in neonatal care. The dispute is about survival rates for babies below 24 weeks.

This is something of a complete, screeching and total reversal of the position she assumed on her blog last week:

I think this report insults the intelligence of the public and MPs alike.

No improvement in neo-natal care in twelve years? Really? So where has all the money that has been pumped into neo-natal services gone then?

Having apparently learned to read the actual research in the intervening days, Dorries has changed her mind. Now, everyone agrees that there has been improvement after 24 weeks - and anyone who denies that is some kind of horribly misinformed, fact-distorting Nadine Dorr.. person. It's a nice attempt to sound coherent and reasonable, but no pass.

Dorries then raises the crucial question:

The key issue here is whether public policy on abortion should be based on population studies like Trent and EPICURE 2 or on best-practice models.

and then completely ignores it to repeat the findings of the UCL study. To close, there's a list of the more obviously emotionally manipulative and selective "facts" repeated from her 20 reasons list.

Nadine Dorries: simply not a trustworthy or reliable voice in the abortion debate.

a moment of accidental political honesty

Just the headline, I think: GOP's New Slogan Already Being Used To Market Anti-Depressant.

the golden age (of sexism)

Via BoingBoing, a marital rating scale developed in the late 1930s to rate wives:

For instance, if your wife "uses slang or profanity," she would get a score of five demerits. On the other hand, if she "reacts with pleasure and delight to marital congress," she would receive 10 merits. The test taker would add up the total number of merits and demerits to receive a raw score, which would categorize the wife on a scale from "very poor" to "very superior."

You'll also lose points if you have crooked seams or wear red nail polish, you big harlot, you.

time for a blogging ethics committee! (part 92)

The Telegraph reports:

A voluntary code of conduct for bloggers and internet commentators is supported by almost half of all internet users, a survey has claimed.

The researchers said 46 per cent of web users believe bloggers should agree to a set of guidelines which reflected the laws on defamation, intellectual property rights and incitement.

Far be it from me to suggest that this is a selective, one-sided reporting of the survey - no, wait, that's exactly what I do. From Brand Republic:

Less than half of all internet users think bloggers should be held to the same legal standards as journalists when publishing opinions, but of those who actually blog themselves only a quarter believe they should be subjected to the same rules. [...]

Opinion is also divided among bloggers, with 34% directly opposed to a code of conduct, but about the same number, 32%, in support of it.

It would, of course, be hopelessly cycnical to suggest that this survey - paid for by one of the country's larger legal firms - has anything but the web's best interests at heart. I'd also quite like to know what sample size you have to survey before you can realistically claim to describe the feelings of "almost half of all internet users." Hmm.

I'm also really not sure what purpose a set of guidelines for conduct would serve - given that the only thing of actual consequence would be the laws we already have.

for sale

So, is your vote worth less or more than £120? At the very least, I'd hope in a democracy that this would start a bidding war..

three issues in the UK abortion debate

For the sake of clarity, there are a few issues at stake here that should be separated out:

1. The evidence for reducing the week limit for abortion is far from compelling; if anything, the most recent research demonstrates that advance in neonatal care have only impacted on premature births after 24 weeks (i.e. the existing limit.) A convincing case for further restrictions has not been made.

2. Nadine Dorries has been incredibly dishonest in her attempt to campaign for a reduction in the week limit. She has smeared opponents, distorted evidence and occasionally outright lied. Whatever else, she cannot be treated as a honest participant in this debate.

3. The demand for a reduction in the week limit to 20 is often not being made in good faith: those pushing most fervently for a reduction have admitted, quite openly, that their interest in 20 weeks is only a stepping-stone to further restriction.

As such, their piecemeal interest in medical science should be viewed with extreme caution - it is only a prop to support (and in part conceal) a more stringent rejection of nearly all abortion. MPs who openly support the reduction on the grounds that they oppose all abortion are in the extreme minority.

shadow health secretary supports relaxing access to abortion

This is, at least, an approaching coherent approach to reforming abortion law:

Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, told MPs on Monday he would seek to make it easier for women to have an abortion at an early stage, while lowering the time limit for late procedures.

The relaxing of rules refers to support for the lifting of the requirement for the signatures of two doctors. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out across the political right - where, as has been demonstrated at length, the desire to reduce the week limit is part of an agenda towards the further restriction of access to abortion.

Making early abortion easier has been routinely rejected by social conservatives (often on spurious health grounds, often through the blanket assumption that women will denied appropriate care and left to fend for themselves) even as late abortion has been challenged.

As such, proponents of the week reduction who have professed only interest in medical science and the health of women will have some twisting to do if they also reject easier access to early abortion (with procedures that are less intrusive, less dangerous and avoid any of those emotive fetal hearbeats or "4D images.")

However, the problem with Lansley's position remains that only a few percent of abortions take place after week 20 - and that the women who need the procedure at that point are highly unlikely to be those who could have sought abortion earlier. Yes, early abortion should be easier to obtain, but there's still no compelling argument for the reduction of the week limit.

more public service journalism

A fresh supply of MMR stupid:

The proposal to exclude children from school unless they have been vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella is another exercise in forcing the combined MMR jab on worried parents.

The reason vaccination rates have fallen and incidence of these diseases has risen is that the Government will not allow the vaccines to be administered separately, despite fears of a possible link between the triple jab and autism.

They should reverse this policy without delay.

Well, given that the policy doesn't exist it would probably be a waste of time reversing it.

Anyone notice how the Mail managed to raise fears of a possible link without managing to mention that there's absolutely no evidence to support it? Thought so.

influence

In yet another list of politically-hot-or-not from The Telegraph, there's this entry to the 50 most influential Conservatives in the UK:

36) Shami Chakrabarti, Director, Liberty

It is a measure of Shami Chakrabarti’s growing influence that she is the only person to be featured both on this list and the left wing equivalent. And if there were a Lib Dem list she’d be on that too.

She, more than anyone, has influenced Conservative civil liberties policies. If there’s a Home Office you can be sure her advice will be sought by both David Davis and Nick Clegg. She is a huge influence on Davis in particular when it comes to developing Conservative policy on the detention of terror suspects for more than 28 days without charge.

If that admission isn't the mark of incredibly successful lobbying across the political spectrum, I'm not sure what is.

gently stoking public ignorance

And The Times joins the latest round of MMR stupidity:

Children will be banned from starting school until they receive the MMR jab, under new Labour party proposals.

Parents will have to provide proof their offspring have had a full range of vaccinations when they put in applications for primary schools.

The plan, designed to increase the take-up of the measles, mumps and rubella triple jab, has been drawn up by Mary Creagh, the Labour MP in charge of the party’s health manifesto for the next general election.

NO. It's not party policy, it's a position paper being published in a think-tank journal.

Next!

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.

so, tell me, what does tabloid hackery look like?

Headline and lede of the most recent entry to the Mail's hacktastic coverage of the MMR vaccine:

Children will not be able to start school 'without MMR jabs', according to controversial Labour plan

Children could be banned from school if they have not had the MMR jab.

The very last line of the story:

It is understood that the idea has not yet been discussed with the Prime Minister and last night Labour insisted it had no plans for compulsory vaccination.

It's actually a proposal to be outlined in a think-tank's magazine, and not any kind of formal policy.

Next: so, tell me, why is the general public so badly misinformed about the MMR vaccine?

soy follies

Via Ben Goldacre's miniblog:

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!)

Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because "I can't remember a time when I wasn't homosexual." No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can't remember a time when excess estrogen wasn't influencing them.

The real question then - given the AWESOME POWER OF SOY, apparently equivalent to "five birth control pills a day" for infants - is why there aren't more gay people kicking about. It's possibly because the story is - wait for it - total balls: the University of Pennsylvania explains why.

Goldacre is offering a pint of wine to anyone who can get this delightfully crazy story into the Daily Mail. Does anyone have Richard Littlejohn's email address?

20 obvious rebuttals to nadine dorries' "twenty reasons for twenty weeks"

Various discussions have been scattered across different posts, comments and blogs. So, for ease of reading, here's Nadine Dorries' twenty reasons for twenty weeks and the quick and dirty rebuttals:

1. Public, parliamentary and medical opinion is changing on late abortion. 63% of MPs, two thirds of GPs, nearly two thirds of the public and more than three-quarters of women support a reduction in the 24-week upper age limit.

A selective exercise in opinion polling (without actually citing any sources for the polls) rather than actual medical research or evidence to support a change.

Support for abortion on demand remains high: 63% according to the most recent annual MORI poll. You might also note that the BMA - the overarching representative body for doctors - overwhelmingly rejected a change in week limit when the issue was last discussed in 2005.

2. High profile cases of babies surviving well below 24 weeks like Manchester's Millie McDonagh, born at 22 weeks, and the world's most premature baby, Amillia Taylor, who was born a week younger, both in October 2006.

This fails to make any note of actual survival rates for premature births, choosing to distort by focussing on a literal extreme, "the worlds' most premature baby." Such cases of survival are actually very rare - the fact that a case is "high profile" is irrelevant.

3. High resolution 3D ultrasound images, pioneered by Professor Stuart Campbell, have shown babies in amazing detail 'walking', yawning, stretching and sucking their thumbs in the womb.

and

20. A 3D ultrasound image.

Both are a transparent appeal to emotion that tell us nothing about foetal viability.

4. In top neonatal units, such as in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 80% of babies born at 24 weeks and 66% of babies born at 23 weeks will survive. Recent figures from University College London are similar.

Sadly, the results of "top neonatal units" tell us nothing about survival rates in the overwhelming majority of other hospitals, and omits any mention of the physical and mental disabilities that are a common consequence of premature birth. A new study due to be published in the peer-reviewed BMJ has found no improvement in survival rates before 24 weeks (though significant improvements after).

5. Recent research, such as that by Professor Sunny Anand from the University of Arkansas, has shown that fetuses are well enough developed to feel pain down to 18 weeks gestation.

There are a number of significant problems with the assumptions made about the findings of this research: see Unity for the short and long discussions.

6. Mothers first feel their babies kick at 19 weeks in a first pregnancy and at 17 weeks in a later pregnancy.

This is another appeal to emotion; it also tell us nothing about foetal viability.

7. Stories of babies born alive after botched abortions, as young as 16 weeks, are increasingly common and have understandably shocked the public.

Despite tabloid hyperbole, such stories are still extremely rare; abortion has never been safer or carried out with greater care. This is also an argument for earlier, easier access to medical abortion.

8. The number of abortions carried out between 20 and 24 weeks has been rising in recent years. Lowering the limit to 20 weeks for normal babies will save almost 2,300 young lives per year.

This ignores both that the abortions which take place between 20 and 24 weeks represent a tiny percentage of the total (around 2%) and the urgent reasons why those procedures take place (such as serious developmental conditions that are not apparent until after week 20).

9. Leading public figures including Opposition leader David Cameron are calling for a cut to at least 20 weeks.

This is an irrelevant appeal to authority. There are also many leading public figures who think the week limit should remain where it is.

10. Britain has the most liberal abortion laws in Europe. A termination can be obtained up to 24 weeks of pregnancy - double the limits in France and Germany and six weeks later than in Sweden or Norway.

The fact that we are "the most liberal" in Europe is irrelevant. There are plenty of ways in which our laws differ from other countries and for good reasons: simply observing difference is not argument.

11. The methods required to abort a post 20 week baby are abhorrent. To avoid a live birth a lethal injection is given into the baby’s heart through the mother’s abdominal wall. The baby is then delivered stillborn or is surgically dismembered and removed from the uterus limb by limb.

This is another appeal to (negative) emotion - besides which, the details of surgical abortion do not tell us anything about fetal viability, or the advances in medical science which would supposedly justify a reduction in the week limit. If anything, this is an argument for quicker access to medical abortion in earlier stages of pregnancy.

12. A recent Royal College of Psychiatrists report acknowledges a link between abortion and mental illness. This is worse with late abortions, especially those for fetal abnormality.

This is a combination of distortion and untruth. The RCP statement (pdf) actually said this:

The specific issue of whether or not induced abortion has harmful effects on women's health remains to be fully resolved. The current research evidence base is inconclusive - some studies indicate no evidence of harm, while other studies identify a range of mental disorders following abortion.

This is far from a simple acknowledgement of a causative link between abortion and mental illness.

13. The vast majority of late abortions (after 16 weeks) take place in private clinics but are classified as ‘NHS Agency’ (ie charged to the NHS). Abortions over 20 weeks cost from £1,300 to £1,600 each and there are inevitably financial vested interests involved.

A simple slur offered without any evidence to support it. It also ignores the very simple, pragmatic reasons why the NHS alone cannot provide the specialised service that is abortion.

14. Babies are now undergoing surgery in the womb under 24 weeks, the photograph of Samuel Armas having surgery at 21 weeks for spina bifida has received international attention.

Almost entirely irrelevant: what does this have to do with late-stage abortion?

15. Very few if any UK graduates are now willing to perform abortions beyond 16 weeks. Almost all doctors performing late abortions in the UK, in BPAS clinics, are from overseas.

Abortion practice has always been limited to a very small percentage of the medical community - there are a number of other specialisms with limited interest. But again, it tells us nothing about foetal viability or the state of medical science.

16. A Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) guideline, supporting an upper limit of 24 weeks, was published in 2004 and needs to be updated in line with the latest evidence on fetal sentience, ultrasound and neonatal survival.

This is not argument: it's the opinion that RCOG should change their minds and agree with Nadine Dorries.

17. The British Medical Association’s opposition to lowering the limit is not supported by the majority of its members and almost 1,000 BMA members recently signed a petition against attempts to further liberalise BMA policy.

The BMA voted overwhelmingly to reject a motion calling for reduction in the 24 week limit.

18. Pregnancy testing kits are freely available at chemists and there is now little excuse for not diagnosing pregnancy long before 20 weeks.

This entirely ignores the circumstances and reasons why late-stage abortion is necessary. Pregnancy testing kits cannot detect birth defects.

19. The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s report recommending retention of the 24 week upper limit was heavily influenced by pro-abortion witnesses.

This claim attempts to attack expert witnesses, rather than actual research. It's a slur that has been discussed previously at painful length for its hypocrisy.

some kind of problem with elementary reading skills

Yes, I admit, it's become a little all-Dorries, all-the-time around here this week, but the more often she speaks, the more often she attempts to distort the issues surrounding abortion.

From her "blog," expressing disbelief in research showing no change in premature birth survival rates before 24 weeks discussed earlier today:

I think this report insults the intelligence of the public and MPs alike.

No improvement in neo-natal care in twelve years? Really? So where has all the money that has been pumped into neo-natal services gone then?

A baby born at 23 weeks today stands no better a chance of living than it did in 1996?

You'd never guess, but this is a selective and obvious distortion of the report's findings.

The report actually looks at births up until 2005 - and does indeed show significant improvements in the survival of babies... but only amongst those born at 24 and 25 weeks. Of 497 babies admitted to intensive care in 2000–05, 236 (47 per cent) survived to discharge compared with 174 of 490 (36 per cent) in 1994–95.

In other words, not only does the report show what she claims it doesn't, but it provides evidence further that her position is full of crap.

Apparently, this deliberate and transparent misreading of the research shows that the BMA "is getting desperate." Hmm.

13 is the new 20 (weeks)

I think the days of pretending that the latest wave of anti-abortion campaigners are pragmatic, honest and dispassionate politicians interested only in medical science are well behind us. The well-documented selective use of research is only the first step:

Jim Dobbin, chairman of the pro-life group of MPs, said he would like to see the current limit halved. “We would like there to be a number of amendments where you can start from a lower limit, say 13 weeks,” he said.

Dr Peter Saunders, general secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said his group was supporting 20 weeks as a first step. "It gets a lot of people on board and gets us on the way," he said. "We have to realise we are in for a very long battle here."

In other words, pick a number, any number, regardless of what any medical research or experience teaches us.

Running out to a meeting, so I'll cut to Unity (who, along with Tim Ireland, is doing a gratifying amount of heaving-lifting on the blogging for this issue):

Get the message?

This isn’t about reducing the upper time limit because of scientific advances in neonatal care, this is about subjecting legal provision for abortion to a slow death by a thousand cuts, regardless of the fact that public support for legal abortion provision runs at a solid 65%-70% and hasn’t shifted in years, even during the current debate.

I don't worry much about accused of entertaining the fallacy of the slippery slope - after all, the campaigners to restrict abortion have been relatively open in stating their ambitions.

20 weeks is a wedge issue leading to far greater restriction. It would be helpful if more journalists reporting this story could be alert to that.

(EDIT: I stupidly didn't credit the above story in The Independent by Jeremy Laurance and Colin Brown - due credit for examining the underlying motives of the MPs involved. I would have liked it, though, if they'd exercised a few more ounces of cynicism in reporting Nadine Dorries' claim that she has the support of 200 MPs. Asking for a list of names would have been a start..)

information is king

A few weeks ago, Nadine Dorries claimed that no NHS hospital would perform an abortion after 16 weeks, unless out of dire need.

She went on radio to repeat this claim, and accused someone who contradicted her of being a liar. From her "blog" entry dated 26th April:

There is no NHS hospital which will carry out abortions over 16 weeks, unless the mothers life really is in serious danger and in those cases the hospitals are in Newcastle and London, North and South.

All abortions over sixteen weeks are carried out in private clinics, cross charged to the government.

We have a government policy which says it’s ok to abort to 24 weeks, and an NHS which doesn’t want to put that policy into practice. [...]

A Parliamentary question which will be walked to the departments office on Monday morning will be to ask the minister to name all NHS hospitals in the UK which have carried out abortions over 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, weeks and the grounds upon which those terminations took place. [...]

Information is king.

Well, Dorries did indeed lodge such a question, for which there is now a formal written answer - one that proves that NHS hospitals routinely perform abortions after 16 weeks. In other words, she's entirely, irrefutably wrong. In fact, roughly a third of procedures take place in NHS hospitals.

Would Nadine Dorries now like to retract her previous claims, and apologise for calling her opponents liars? Or would you perhaps instead like to go to the moon on my pig-rocket?

(Incidentally, the parliamentary answer given quotes figures almost identical to those found by Unity in reaching the same conclusion, i.e. that Nadine Dorries is entirely wrong. Huh. Turns out information really is king.)

new study shows no improvement in premature survival rates

One of the primary anti-abortion objections to the EPICure study is that it produces an average national figure for premature birth survival. That average, runs the argument, disguises significant improvements in neonatal care at a more local level.

However, a new study due to be published in the BMJ suggests that claim is not sustainable:

[A] team led by Professor David Field, using data from the Trent region of the NHS, suggests that in the past 12 years there has been no change in the survival rates of those born before 24 weeks. They looked at data for all babies born before 26 weeks’ gestation who were alive at the onset of labour from 1994 to 1999 and from 2000 to 2005. The study involved 16 hospitals with more than 55,000 births a year.

They found that despite more than half the babies born at 23 weeks being admitted to intensive care, there was no improvement in survival in this group over the 12 years of the study, and only 18 per cent (12 out of 65) survived out of hospital. Importantly, during the 12-year period, care for the 150 babies born at 22 weeks remained unsuccessful, and none survived to be discharged.

The study also seems to provide an evidence base for the current week limit, and that any advances in care have an impact at or after that point:

There were, however, significant improvements in the survival of babies born at 24 and 25 weeks. Of 497 babies admitted to intensive care in 2000–05, 236 (47 per cent) survived to discharge compared with 174 of 490 (36 per cent) in 1994–95.

I expect the response will be that this report too fails to pay sufficient attention to the small number of hospitals who have specialist staff working in specialist neonatal units. The problem with that objection - as ever before - is that to focus exclusively on those hospitals does not in any way give a realistic picture of premature baby survial rates.

At best, such localised success might indicate the upper end of potential improvements - however unfortunate that might be, the success of such hospitals is due to the skill and experience of an extremely small cohort of doctors, nurses and other health care workers. Such specialisation simply isn't common throughout the UK - or likely to be achievable countrywide - and to suggest otherwise is to mistake the nature of their work and the various costs (financial and otherwise) of making it possible.

nadine dorries: I would prefer a 9 week limit for abortions

Via Unity, the balanced view of Nadine Dorries from October 2007, who has since repeatedly claimed that she isn't interested in pushing her own opinion but just wants the law to reflect advances in medical science:

I do not stand at zero weeks. I believe life begins and ends with the first and last heartbeat, which is around 9 - 12 weeks.

What I do believe in, is women being in full possession of the facts and at the moment they aren't, because the woman might change her mind and that would get in the way of the abortionist waiting for a payment.

A woman seeking an abortion in this country is the victim of a well organised industry.

You are right about one thing, I do want to go lower than 20 weeks - I would settle for the European average of 13 weeks, but would prefer 9.

So, either Dorries supports an unannounced abortion law based on the detection of fetal heart beats, or is a massive hypocrite for making a public argument which entirely contradicts the moral basis of her own private beliefs.

The fact that this preference for nine weeks has slipped from her public statements will have something to do with the fact that there's no support - scientific or otherwise - for such a measure, and that the only way to even think about gathering public support for her crusade is to make her personal opinions look like the rational, measured judgements of others rather than a figure she has pulled out of the air.

Incidentally, if Dorries believes that all women seeking abortions are victims of "a well organised industry," why isn't she campaigning for a ban on that supposed industry? Why isn't she even interested in reforming that industry?

Could it just be that she objects to all abortion and has been lying through her teeth about it?

more news about total bastards: bae edition

Why, if it isn't the sack-cloth and ashes approach to PR rehabilitation:

BAE Systems, the arms giant accused of making corrupt payments worldwide to win lucrative contracts, has admitted it acted unethically in the past.

The admissions were made by BAE executives to Lord Woolf, the former lord chief justice, who was hired by the company to review its conduct. BAE promised to improve its behaviour when seeking to win future contracts.

It's one of those mea culpas that costs BAE absolutely nothing by stopping just short of admitting to anything that might actually lead to a prosecution: yes, we regret our past actions, but we're not going to tell you what was regrettable about them. We have regrets, but we mainly regret getting caught.

Then there's this choice piece of denial:

However, Woolf has been accused of producing a "whitewash" for a company desperate to improve its public image - a claim he rejected yesterday. When he agreed to do the job, he accepted BAE's terms that he would not investigate the details of allegedly corrupt deals of the past, nor BAE's system of making secret payments to middlemen through offshore accounts.

So, uh, what exactly did he investigate, then? Well, nothing that BAE didn't want him to see - he made his decisions "on the basis of the information given by BAE" who assured Woolf that "it had not employed any middlemen to land the contract." And good chaps tell other good chaps what good chaps need to know, right?

Golly, I'm just filled with trust right about now.

experts, what do they know?

Another bold step in the direction of tabloid populism - it's the kabuki play of government decisiveness:

Cannabis is to be upgraded from a class C to a class B drug, Jacqui Smith told MPs this afternoon. The Home Secretary’s announcement comes just hours after the government’s official advisory body on drugs recommended that it should remain as a class C substance. [...]

Reclassifying cannabis will mean the penalty for possession will increase from two years in prison and/or an unlimited fine to five years in jail and/or an unlimited fine. The penalty for supplying the drug remains the same at 14 years in jail and/or a fine.

Chief police officers have already said that it is unlikely that they will change their tactics from the current “confiscate and warn” policy for anyone caught with cannabis in their possession for personal use. Chief constables are considering whether fixed penalty notices could be used for people caught in possession of the drug.

My favourite "isn't it amazing that this isn't a headline?" moment comes towards the end of the story:

However, despite the high prevalence of cannabis use, the survey suggests that usage has declined by around 20-25 per cent over the past five years in all age groups.

Perhaps something to keep in mind during the next round of "killer skunk spliffs stalk our school yards" journalism.

some kind of enormous surprise

Let your brain collapse gently inwards as plans to reduce waiting times for abortion... are opposed by people who want to reduce the week limit on abortion. You'd think that people who support a shorter week limit on abortion would also support safe measures which would make abortions near to the week deadline less common (and less necessary).

That is, unless the people claiming to be interested in reducing the week limit in the name of advances in medical science are entirely opposed to all forms of abortion, and are using the current debate as a cover to advance that agenda. Hmm.

Incidentally, the Science and Technology Committee observed late last year that women were experiencing unneccessary delays in accessing abortion services. Guess who was sitting on that Committee, but objects to any measures which might speed up access while demanding a shorter week limit?

Ten points for anyone who can say "Nadine Dorries."

grown-up behaviour

Alright - one more for today. To summarise, Nadine Dorries discovers she doesn't know the rules concerning Parliamentary behaviour (not for the first time) throws hissy fit and claims that being an MP gives her "a democratic right" to hold a television press conference whereever she pleases.

It's an interesting theory of representational democracy, no doubt, and one which will entirely endear her to the Serjeant at Arms office - who have the unenviable job of overseeing room use in the Palace of Westminster.

The full Serjeant at Arms website is on the Parliamentary intranet, but I'm prepared to bet that there are rules about filming private press conferences in committee rooms - particularly when you're not acting on behalf of a Parliamentary committee but launching your own personal campaign.

Still, better to cover your own ignorance with outraged bluster, hey?

nadine dorries: good hospitals get good results, shock

Nadine Dorries attempts a gotcha question in Parliament:

I am sure that the Minister is aware that the EPICure 2 study averaged out every birth in the UK, wherever they took place and whether they were in a hospital with a neonatal unit or not. Does she agree that if a woman goes into premature labour in a hospital with a good neonatal unit, to which the baby is immediately transferred, the outcome for that baby is likely to be much improved?

What next? Asking if good schools with specialist staff get good exams results?

You'll note that this question has nothing to do with the number of women who actually live anywhere near such a hospital, or could travel to one whilst in labour. It has nothing to do with the total number of beds in neonatal units with specialist teams with good survival rates available to said cohort. It also has nothing to do with the fact that survival rates in above average neonatal units are still relatively low.

Instead, it's an entirely vacuous question designed to confirm a trusim - that good hospitals with specialist equipment get good results - without actually addressing any element of the reality of NHS care for premature births. It's a speculative, rhetorical question intended to provoke a specific answer which we already know.

More significantly, it's an attempt to undermine the validity of the EPICure study which, amongst other things, provides a large amount of inconvenient data that supports the position taken by the BMA (along with the RCOG) - that no change to the week limit is justified on grounds of premature survival rates, regardless of any other social issues.

Dorries' argument appears to be that taking the average survival rate distorts and disguises the successes of specialist units. However, that's a position which never recognises that emphasising that minority of hospitals - with a proportionally tiny number of beds, beyond the geographic reach of most women - is far more dishonest. Dorries' position appears that the law should reflect the upper end of potential survival rates, regardless of the actual provision of services or experience of a majority of women in the real world.

Dorries' limited focus on the headline average also ignores the vast amount of specific regional data in the EPICure study - while she might object to the supposedly misleading overall average, there's nothing to stop anyone (an MP, even) from looking at more detailed data to acquire a more informed, nuanced understanding of the issue. If anything, Dorries' approach merely compounds and repeats the problem she identifies: the selective distortion of statistics.

All of which, incidentally, is just a sideshow for the purposes of gathering ammunition to attack access to abortion, regardless of the reasons why women might seek it.

more anti-abortion distortions (updated again)

(EDIT: there's a cleaner, more readable version of this post here.)

Nadine Dorries has produced "twenty reasons for twenty weeks" - arguments for reducing the week limit on abortion which are, in turn, irrelevant, misleading or entirely stripped of any factual content. (UPDATE: the Mail has pulled the original story for some reason so the link goes to a different story. Hmm.) So, very quickly, here's a run-down of the paucity of Dorries' case, to which I'm sure others can add:

Argument one is an exercise in public polling (without actually citing any sources for the polls) rather than actual medical research or evidence to support a change.

Argument two fails to make any note of the actual survival rates for premature births, choosing to distort by focussing on a literal extreme, "the worlds' most premature baby."

Argument three ("High-resolution 3D ultrasound images") is also argument twenty, an ultrasound picture of a foetus. Both are a transparent appeal to emotion.

The claimed survival rate in "top neonatal units" in argument four says nothing about the survival rate elsewhere in the country, or any of the physical and mental disabilities that are are common consequence of premature birth.

Argument six says absolutely nothing about the health of either mother or child - "Mothers first feel their babies kick at 19 weeks in a first pregnancy" - it's another kind of emotive appeal based on ignorance.

Argument eight, pointing out the rising number of abortions being carried out between 20 and 24 weeks fails to also note that those abortions form an incredibly tiny proportion of the total (less than a percent after 22 weeks, for example) and ignores the urgent reasons for why those procedures take place.

Argument nine - that people like David Cameron want a cut in the week limit - is an appeal to entirely irrelevant authority.

The possible link to mental illness in argument twelve is also entirely one-sided and fails to note that the Royal College of Psychiatrists aren't sure whether such illness is linked to pregnancy, abortion, birth or any of the above:

Mental disorder can occur for some women during pregnancy and after birth.

The specific issue of whether or not induced abortion has harmful effects on women's health remains to be fully resolved. The current research evidence base is inconclusive - some studies indicate no evidence of harm, while other studies identify a range of mental disorders following abortion.

Argument thirteen is a repeat of the "abortion industry" slur, given without any regard to any of the actual reasons why the NHS can't provide the specialised service of abortion nationwide.

It's also, entertainingly, an apparent contradiction of Dorries' own claim from last week that no late abortions take place in NHS hospitals; it's now only "most" which take place in private clinics. Presumably Dorries will now be issuing an apology for her previous faulty claims, and for accusing those who contradicted her of being liars.

Argument fourteen - about surgical procedures - has no relevancy to the issue of abortion for social reasons, and little relevance to the general issue of abortion.

Argument sixteen is not an argument - it's an opinion that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists should ignore the overwhelming body of research and their own professional opinions to listen to people like Nadine Dorries.

Argument seventeen once more confuses the examination of evidence with opinion polling, and ignores - in any case - that the vast majority of members of the BMA support the current week limit and voted accordingly at conference.

Argument eighteen is trite to the point of ridiculousness, and fails to note that late term abortions can take place because of birth defects which have become apparent during pregnancy: a pregnancy testing kit is of no help in that situation.

Argument nineteen - that the Commons science and technology committee was heavily influenced by pro-abortion witnesses - is another baseless slur that has been discussed before at painful length (updated: with a proper chronology detailing Dorries' hypocrisy over here.)

It's also only a few weeks since Dorries was apparently throwing her support behind a 15 week limit - it's entirely unclear why 20 weeks is now appropriate.

If there's a compelling case to be made for the reduction in the week limit, it's not made here - all that Dorries has managed to do is to assemble a rather long list of the most frequently repeated red herrings and appeals to emotion. And - in line with Dorries' track record - it makes a shamefully selective use of evidence, overstating only the elements which appear to support a week reduction while ignoring the majority view which contradicts it.

(UPDATE: If you're looking for a one-line summary of the kind of distortion you can expect, the 20 week campaign website currently claims "All evidence is telling us that it is time to slow down and cut the limit," while linking to a one-sided assessment of the evidence by.. Nadine Dorries.


UPDATE 2: brief responses to the remaining arguments down in the comments.)

this tv filth is so shocking I may have to order the boxset

Quite unbelievably stupid journalism: the Mail complains that the BBC iplayer "makes a mockery of the 9pm watershed" by allowing 24hr access to adult material...

...and then lists exactly which programmes contain "topless young women in a series of erotic poses," "sexually explicit langugage," "shots of topless women in sexy poses" etc. etc.

How very helpful for the mythical teenager who access to the internet but hasn't worked out how to google for porn. Truly, a public service.