Abortion debate resurfaces

One of the central features of David Cameron’s reinvention of the Conservative party going in to the 2010 election was the pull to the centre; dressed in the vocabulary of the Big Society and Green Conservatism, they sought to shed the old-fashioned, right-wing image. ‘Backbench’ MPs may have been unhappy, but the promise of government and a Tory majority kept them at bay.

However, that majority resolutely failed to materialise, and so began the struggle between Cameron and his backbenchers that seems to have defined the Conservative’s period in coalition. Indeed, one of the first things Cameron did after becoming Prime Minister was to hammer through a vote allowing cabinet MPs to sit on meetings of the 1922 Committee, a group of backbenchers that has the power to unseat a Tory leader.

In this way we can interpret the Tories’ continual jerks to the right as the inevitable result of continual infighting, with Cameron swerving between direct conflict with his backbenchers, such as the unprecedented rebellion over Lord’s reform, and attempts to placate them such as continual discussion about an EU referendum and the recent Cabinet reshuffle.

The recent furore over Jeremy Hunt’s declaration of support for a reduction in the 24-week abortion time limit is a good example of the continual push and pull between the centre and the right. Hunt’s position, unchanged since the 2008 vote, which kept the time-limit at 24 weeks, appeals strongly to the more hardline voices in the back benches.

As Health Secretary, Hunt’s role requires evidence based decisions and, simply put, the evidence is entirely against him; survival rates below 24 weeks have not improved substantially, and both the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists advise holding the limit at 24. Yet, by virtue of his position, his reaffirmation takes on more weight than the similar remarks made by Theresa May and Equalities Minister Maria Miller last week.

But David Cameron has stated quite plainly that the Tories have no plans to table another vote on the issue of abortion. So why all the noise? Looking at the events with the context of infighting, it seems that Number 10 sought to reassure hardline Tories with a reminder that the Cabinet still sits to the right, in order to dampen the potential rebellion over the upcoming debate on gay marriage.

Looking at the speeches from the Conservative Party Conference this week, the language of the ‘centre’ seems to have disappeared entirely. Despite Cameron’s appeal that “The Conservative party is for everyone” and refusal to stop talking about the invisible Big Society, his aides insist that the common ground in politics sits with them, well right of centre. Number 10, it seems, sides with the backbenchers, but it’s taken two and a half years of pulling on their part for Cameron to let slip the mask of centrism.