Tory calls for debate on cut to abortion limit

A SENIOR Conservative has called for a debate on reducing the 24-week time limit on abortions.

Maria Caulfield, the Tory vice chairman for women, said she had ‘concerns’ about the current time limit, adding that in most of Europe abortions were not legal after 15 or 16 weeks.

The former nurse said the 24-week limit was a relic of a time when such babies would not have been expected to live. Now half of babies born at 22 weeks are viable. She called for an inquiry leading to new ‘evidence-based’ laws based on how medically-feasible it is to keep such premature babies alive.

Theresa May faced criticism in January when she promoted Miss Caulfield even though she had led opposition to a parliamentary bid to end the criminalisation of women who terminate their own pregnancies. Labour’s equalities spokesman, Dawn Butler, branded the appointment ‘appalling’.

But in an interview with House magazine, Miss Caulfield, the MP for Lewes, said her views on abortion had been ‘mispresented’. Asked whether she wanted to look again at the limit, Ms Caulfield said: ‘I think we need to have that debate.’