The Daily Telegraph has run on the front page today with a story regarding the deluge of liberalising abortion amendments which have been laid down by Evan Harris MP and John Bercow MP.

Despite the shocking rise in the number of abortions which take place each year, against the backdrop of statistics which show that we now have children aborting, Harris and Bercow both think that the answer, is to send out the message that abortion is no big deal and let's have more.

I think the amendments tabled by both men amount to a form of legislative abuse of women. They display no care or attention to the effects of abortion on women and a complete disregard towards any moral direction of our young people.

Both are clever men. Both know that societal behaviour is affected by the legislative framework within which society operates.

Imagine if we passed a law to de-criminalise knife carrying?

You could argue that only people who need to carry a knife will, but of course we all know that's not the case - as a result of the message we would have sent out, knife carrying would increase - the same will be true if their amendments are successful - the number of abortions will increase.

I would have thought that it would be hard to beat Evan Harris in his evangelical pursuit of gynaecological blood sports.

Bercows amendment seeks to criminalise any doctor of conscience who provides counselling or guidance to any woman seeking an abortion, with two years imprisonment. In fact, it goes even further than that, as picked up by Simon Chapman on Conservative Home http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2008/07/bercow-speak-th.html

Wether these amendments are selected or not, one has to ask the question why?