According to a YouGov poll in yesterday's Sunday Times  48 per cent of people support the upper limit for abortion being reduced to 20 weeks. This figure rises to 59 per cent amongst women. Eight per cent want to see abortion banned completely.

This means that those wishing to keep the current 24 week limit are in the minority.

I am sure that many of the people surveyed possibly have no idea how a termination post 19 weeks of pregnancy takes place and the procedures deployed.

Many will have no idea regarding sentience, foetal development, viability or foetal pain. The developing science, regarding neo-nates, is only really known to those who specialise in this field of medicine, or benefit first hand from its practice.

If they did, the YouGov poll impressive as it is, would have, I am quite sure, been overwhelming in its conclusions.

According to the Sunday Times, Dawn Primarolo MP, the Health Minister, will this week attempt to persuade MPs to retain the 24 week limit.

Now, why would a government Minister want to persuade MPs to vote against the will of the people?

Isn’t that why we, as MPs, are in Westminster, as representatives of the people? Isn’t that what democracy is about, accountability to the people?

If I were a government MP with a small majority, and the Tories leading in the polls, I would think very carefully about making sure I voted the way the majority of my constituents wanted. Maybe, on the day of the vote, I might just leave my arrogance at the entrance of the yes lobby; and cast a vote for decency and humanity, and not union funded political ideology.