We Asked Nadine Dorries Seven Questions on Abortion and Sex Education Legislation
In January 2022, we emailed Nadine Dorries, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, seven questions about her previous record on abortion and sex education legislation. The MP for Mid Bedforshire has not responded to requests for comments.
Dorries has never been one to hide her opinions. In May 2012, she wrote an article opposing legislation to introduce same-sex marriage. In August 2018, she supported now Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Islamaphobic article calling burka-wearing Muslim women “letter boxes” by saying that Johnson did not go far enough and it was the Government which should apologise.
Dorries has also been accused of hypocrisy in her campaign to introduce legislature against online abuse, after threatening the journalist in 2013, and calling LBC presenter James O’Brien “a public school posh boy fuck wit.”
Following his appointment as Prime Minister in July 2019, Boris Johnson appointed Dorries as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety in the Department of Health and Social Care. In May 2020, she was promoted to Minister of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety. In November 2020, she rejected an offer of cross-party talks to discuss a mental health support package for frontline NHS and care staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In September 2021, Dorries was promoted further, to her current position as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Five days later, she was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council at Balmoral. This gives her the lifelong honorific prefix “The Right Honourable”.
Given her lifelong title, we decided to ask Nadine Dorries about her previous Bill proposal record, and her attempt to impel the lifelong role of parent.
Question: In England, Wales and Scotland, most abortions are carried out before 24 weeks of pregnancy. In 2011, you proposed a bill stripping some abortion providers (e.g. Marie Stopes and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service) from offering counselling to women in order to “reduce [the volume of] them [abortions]”. Do you still agree with this proposal, and if so, why?
ND (Nadine Dorries): The MP for Mid Bedforshire has not responded to requests for comments.
A (Author): The amendment lost 368 votes to 118. Dorries claimed to have “lost the battle, but won the war”, based on Health Minister Anne Milton (MP for Guildford, 2005–2019) suggestion that the Government would support the spirit of Dorries’s amendment. Every legislative Bill on abortion proposed by Dorries has lost or has been pulled from the order of business.
Question: In the past you have described late abortions, offered only in severe medical cases, as “murder”. Do you stand by this statement?
ND: The MP for Mid Bedforshire has not responded to requests for comments.
A: According to the NHS website, there are very limited circumstances in which late term abortions can be carried out. These are carried out if the mother’s life is at risk or the child could be born with a severe disability. There are some questions about the ethics of aborting children with disabilities, however, given Dorries’s voting records on policy pertaining to aid, rights, and ease of life for disabled people, this Author doubts that Dorries has thought about any complexities, for any length of time.
Question: You have said of female Labour MPs who opposed your move to lower the time limit of legal abortions: “They are not Labour women, they act like Labour men. They have no feeling. As far as they are concerned, it is all right to abort up to birth.” Do you stand by this statement?
ND: The MP for Mid Bedforshire has not responded to requests for comments.
A: This initial statement was in 2011. As recently as 2019, Nadine Dorries has tweeted:
Question: In 2012, you proposed a bill calling for teenage girls to be given compulsory lessons in sexual abstinence, which was pulled from the order of business. This bill included the phrase “the benefits of abstinence”. What are the benefits of abstinence?
ND: The MP for Mid Bedforshire has not responded to requests for comments.
A: Dorries proposed a Bill which would require that sex education taught to 13–16 year-old girls should include the promotion of abstinence. This was presented as ‘teaching them how to say no’. The Bill would have made it a requirement in sex education classes to teach abstinence to girls. Dorries claimed that the Bill was “about giving empowerment to young girls”. This Author wonders if Dorries can define what exactly is ‘empowering’ about blaming teenage girls for society’s “[focus] on sex.”
Question: In reference to the previous question, why did the bill only suggest teaching abstinence to teenage girls? Did you ever think about proposing a bill teaching abstinence to teenage boys?
ND: The MP for Mid Bedforshire has not responded to requests for comments.
A: The Bill did not require the same to be taught to boys. This Author would wonder why, but she already knows.
Question: In the Netherlands, proactive, accurate sex education is taught to primary and secondary school pupils. As a result of this, the rates of unwanted pregnancies and abortions have dropped. With this information in mind, would you still argue that there are benefits to teaching abstinence?
ND: The MP for Mid Bedforshire has not responded to requests for comments.
A: In 2017, two scientific review papers in the United States found that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and policies are ineffective because they do not delay the initiation of sexual intercourse. According to the researchers, these programs also violate adolescent human rights, withhold medically accurate information, stigmatise and exclude many youths, reinforce harmful gender stereotypes, and undermine public health programs.
Question: The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has never voted on any abortion legislation. The Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, is on record saying that he is “completely opposed to abortion”, even in cases of incest or rape. The Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, has rejected cross-party calls for ‘buffer zones’ around abortion clinics to protect women from anti-abortion protestors. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, has abstained on 7 of the 8 votes on abortion legislation during his tenure as an MP. The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, has abstained on 9 of the 11 votes on abortion legislation during her tenure as an MP. Are women’s rights safe in the hands of the Conservative Party?
ND: The MP for Mid Bedforshire has not responded to requests for comments.
A: With the leading figures of the Conservative Party seemingly unable or unwilling to defend the sexual and physical health of people with wombs, this Author wonders whether the motivations of Dorries are as altruistic as she claims. She suspects not.
The lack of comments and the spread of such misinformation during the 2019 GE suggests to this Author that Dorries has not changed her views on abortion, just continued to be unsuccessful in implementing legislation against it.
Thus is the way of Nadine Dorries, a minister of extremism in all things.
