So much was missing from today’s abortion debate

The anti-abortion lobby is unfortunate to have been lumped this week with Nadine Dorries as its unofficial spokesperson. Nadine is actually PRO-abortion, for starters, as she never seems to tire of pointing out. She does, however, possess many of the unpleasant characteristics associated with pro-lifers: she’s preachy, brimming with self-righteous zeal, and incapable of seeing her opponents’ point of view. She didn’t deserve to be barracked in the House of Commons today, perhaps, but the obnoxious way in which she argued for her amendment sealed its fate.

It didn’t help, of course, that pro-life organisations steered well clear of Dorries and her amendment, which, in case you didn’t know, sought to ensure that groups providing abortion counselling were different to the groups providing abortions. A pro-lifer friend told me yesterday:

“Nadine Dorries seems to be imply that there can be some amazing middle-ground of counselling. And there’s no such thing.