Politics of abortion
Sir: There is more to democracy than H. K. Barrett (Letters, 17 April) may suppose. It is not enough to persuade a few hundred MPS that they know what the people want, if they are wrongly persuaded.
Lobbying by pressure groups and opinion polls commissioned by interested parties are no substitute for consulting the electorate; as is not and indeed cannot be done with controversial Private Member's Bills, for which both Government and Opposition disclaim all elec- torarresponsibility.
So far as the Abortion Act 1967 is concerned, what reason is there to believe that Parliament may have been any better informed of the true wishes of the electorate than it was of the likely conse- quences of Mr Steel's Bill which, as we were frequently assured, was never intended to permit abortion on demand?
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