Proposed UK Measure to Prevent Abortion Providers From Counseling Women is Defeated in House of Commons

The Guardian: Nadine Dorries's abortion proposals heavily defeated in Commons, by Nicholas Watt:

An attempt to strip abortion providers of their role in counselling women was heavily defeated in the House of Commons this afternoon after a split between the original supporters of the amendment.

MPs voted by 368 votes to 118 – a majority of 250 – to reject the amendment by the Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries after she lost the support of her co-sponsor, the former Labour minister Frank Field.

Dorries managed to win the support of three cabinet ministers – Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, Liam Fox, the defence secretary, and Owen Paterson, the Northern Ireland secretary.

Field withdrew his support for the Dorries amendment after Anne Milton, the health minister, said the government would try to implement the spirit of her proposal. . . .

Dorries hailed Milton's undertaking as a victory. She told the BBC's Norman Smith: "We lost the battle but we have won the war." . . .