Jeremy Hunt did nothing about abortion when he was Health Secretary, so I cannot see why anyone would expect him to do anything about it now.
In Britain, the Anglo-American model of abortion absolutely on demand up to and including partial birth is perhaps the most abiding legacy of Margaret Thatcher, whose name is abominated within the pro-life movement in terms otherwise reserved for Tony Blair.
In the United States, that movement is scarcely worth mentioning, having told its supporters to vote for Ronald Reagan (who had legalised abortion in California, and who went on to appoint no fewer that three supporters of abortion to the Supreme Court), for George Bush, for Bob Dole, for George W. Bush, for John McCain, for Mitt Romney (who derived an income from the public funding that he introduced for abortion in Massachusetts), and for Planned Parenthood's very own major donor, Donald Trump. Put not your trust in Brett Kavanaugh.
In Britain, the Anglo-American model of abortion absolutely on demand up to and including partial birth is perhaps the most abiding legacy of Margaret Thatcher, whose name is abominated within the pro-life movement in terms otherwise reserved for Tony Blair.
In the United States, that movement is scarcely worth mentioning, having told its supporters to vote for Ronald Reagan (who had legalised abortion in California, and who went on to appoint no fewer that three supporters of abortion to the Supreme Court), for George Bush, for Bob Dole, for George W. Bush, for John McCain, for Mitt Romney (who derived an income from the public funding that he introduced for abortion in Massachusetts), and for Planned Parenthood's very own major donor, Donald Trump. Put not your trust in Brett Kavanaugh.
By contrast, the fairly recent prosecution of a German gynaecologist for advertising abortion was a reminder of what is in fact the European mainstream. Even I might have had more time for the EU if it had conformed us more to that, just as I might have done if it really had acted as a break on the economic mayhem of the last 40 years, or if it really had kept this country at peace.
It is, I say again, the American-style free-for-all bequeathed to Great Britain by Margaret Thatcher that is odd. Although there is a longstanding policy of turning a blind eye during the first trimester, abortion is illegal in Europe's most populous country and largest economy. After the first trimester, that law is very much enforced.
It is, I say again, the American-style free-for-all bequeathed to Great Britain by Margaret Thatcher that is odd. Although there is a longstanding policy of turning a blind eye during the first trimester, abortion is illegal in Europe's most populous country and largest economy. After the first trimester, that law is very much enforced.
Countries that manage with a 12-week limit include Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France and Italy. The Czech Republic is probably the most secular country in the world. Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark and France are all less religious than the United Kingdom is. As is Slovenia, with a 10-week limit.
Moreover, most, if not all, of those countries are also rather less belligerent. Abortion more-or-less on demand is a neoliberal concept, so to speak, and it is thus a feature of the American Empire as surely as it was not a feature of the old American Republic. That is why we have it here. It is part and parcel of that which is "neo" in everything that neoconservatives seek, not merely to conserve, but to spread across the whole wide earth by the force of arms.
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