Nadine Dorries and why her abortion proposals failed

Nadine Dorries and the campaigners who help her on abortion failed in communication and strategy

On Wednesday this week Nadine Dorries, the MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, moved an amendment to the Health Bill that would have separated the provision of counselling services for women who are unsure about whether or not to have an abortion, from the private contractors who provide abortions on NHS funding.

It was a modest proposal that was unfortunately hit hard by ideologues supportive of abortion (no matter what) in politics, journalism and the media during the last weekend of parliamentary recess.

The Guardian and BBC’s Newsnight ran stories that inaccurately linked the amendment to pro-life crisis pregnancy centres that offered (unfortunately in some cases) erroneous information—propaganda—to women seeking help in making a decision about whether they should have an abortion. Reporting by the Guardian and Newsnight was in this instance despicable.

Following the reports it was clear to folk involved that the Government would bring forward its own consultation on the matter, generally supporting the spirit of the amendments, but giving the proposals due process and Government backing, on its own terms.

The vote was lost already days before parliament debated the amendments when the health minister and Downing Street let it be known that they would not support the amendments. A debate could have been had as to the merits and demerits of the proposals, but that was not to be.

On Wednesday Dorries filibustered for an hour, out of what was meant to be an hour and a half debate on the proposals, at the end of which she called a vote on one of five amendments that had been tabled without any clarity about which amendment she had been talking about during her own speech. She called a vote.

The vote was lost but the whole fiasco shows the fractured nature of the pro-life lobby, and the unreliability of Nadine Dorries and the lack of trust people have in her and how she and her co-conspirers operate.

Despite the pressure from the pro-choice lobby, at the end of the day it was Dorries’ inaccuracies and lack of communication with supportive colleagues that lost the vote by a majority of 250. Of course, it was the campaign journalism which helped persuade the Conservative leadership that they could not afford to back one of their own against the campaigning of a failed former Lib Dem MP, Evan Harris - labelled by some as Dr. Death for his strident support for abortion and euthanasia - against the modest proposal.

David Cameron took the low moral ground letting it be known that he and other senior ministers would oppose the amendment. Nevertheless, the fact that Frank Field MP, Dorries’ Labour co-sponsor to the original amendment actually voted against his own proposals, gives the story away. How is it possible that he was alienated from the discussions in such a way that he would agree to the proposals earlier in the year, and then vote against the amendments on the day?

One conspiracy theory is that socially conservative Conservatives want to build a Christian fundamentalist right wing in UK politics to reflect the US “moral majority”. This is something that was repeated by Dianne Abbott MP, spokesperson for the Labour party on the proposals in the debate. While this might be the ambition of some in the Conservative party, it will ultimately fail, because Christians in this country have too much sense to be suckered in to some sort of version of the US culture wars.

No. This failure is down to the miscommunication and fractured nature of Christian campaign groups, relying too heavily on an MP who is notoriously unreliable in her willingness to trust others and be a clear communicator. They need to repent and rebuild their own reliability and trust before they can rebuild their reputation and gain the trust of MPs that want to do the right thing and support women facing a crisis pregnancy.