Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has stood by his "personal view" that the abortion limit should be lowered.

He supports lowering the limit to 12 weeks

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who today launched his bid to become Prime Minister, has come under fire from abortion activists for repeating his view that the abortion limit should be lowered.

View hasn't changed

Mr Hunt said in a 2012 interview that after reviewing the evidence, he supported lowering the abortion limit to 12 weeks. Asked by Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday if that was still his position, he said: "My view hasn't changed on that and I respect the fact that other people have very different views.

"That's why these matters are always matters for free votes in the House of Commons and when they come up people vote with their conscience."

But wouldnt be Govt policy

When pressed on if he could guarantee the legal limit would stay at 24 weeks if he became Prime Minister, Mr Hunt replied: "What I can guarantee is it will be a matter for the House of Commons, not a matter for government policy.

"The prime minister will have his view just like every other one of the 650 MPs and these will be decided as a matter of conscience.

"But it won't be government policy to change the law in that respect."

Mr Hunt confirmed today that it would not be Government policy to change the abortion limit, and he has the backing of abortion supporting Amber Rudd, who said he had reassured her on the point.

"Horror show"

However, this has not stopped him being attacked by extreme abortion advocates. Labour MP Jess Phillips, one of the key figures behind the push to decriminalise abortion and impose it on Northern Ireland, tweeted: "Jeremy Hunt how about we base this stuff on evidence and science and keep what you think is best based on no experience out of this."

Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine said the foreign secretary's personal views were "incredibly alarming", while Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described the leadership contest as a "horror show", which included "attacks on abortion rights".

Slammed by decriminalisation promoters

BPAS, one of Britain’s largest abortion providers, and whose chief executive Ann Furedi has promoted abortion up to birth and sex-selective abortion, posted a series of tweets slamming Mr Hunt’s remarks. One said that his desire to lower the time limit means "that you are okay with the fact that victims of domestic violence for whom abuse escalates in pregnancy will find it even harder to escape a violent partner."

In fact, as is detailed in Abortion and Women’s Health, intimate partner violence is a risk factor for abortion all over the world. Decriminalising abortion, as BPAS is campaigning for, would mean there would be no obligation to question a woman on why she was seeking an abortion, meaning the opportunity to detect abuse and coercion would be lost.

Take action to stop decriminalisation being brought in by the back door

Who's really out of touch?

Despite the hysteria in the press and from some MPs about Mr Hunt’s comments being extreme and out of touch, his position is more in line with the public than that of BPAS and Jess Phillips. Several polls have shown that a majority opposes removing abortion from the criminal law, and that women in particular support more restrictions than there are at present.

The SPUC position is that all unborn babies should be protected by law, not just those over an arbitrary time limit, and that the current situation in Parliament makes attempts to achieve change through lowering the time-limit unwise. However, the fact that a politician expressing that he would personally like to see such a moderate change to the law is attacked with such vitriol shows how extreme the abortion lobby has become and how little their horrific ideology can be questioned.