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Emily Thornberry and 24 weeks
Submitted by hangbitch on 18 May 2008 - 8:39pm. abortion rights | Emily Thornberry | Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill They'll be voting to keep the 24-time limit for abortion this week: here's Labour MP Emily Thornberry on the Labour party and the pro-choice lobby's chances:
Leading Labour pro-choice MP Emily Thornberry is youngish (47), new to the national scene (first elected to parliament in 2005), able to talk a blue streak (she was a criminal lawyer), charismatic, and - at first interview, anyway - refreshingly disinterested in caution.
Truly disinterested, even: she says and does - apparently - anything. She freely describes some Labour colleagues as Neanderthals. She says that others hold views that she thought died with the 1950s. She takes a worthy - if unusual - pleasure in winding up the myriad police that patrol the Houses of Parliament. Giggling like a fruitcake, she marches us past security and up to the HoP's terraces (possibly the terraces that Plane Stupid comandeered for their Heathrow-runway protest a month or two back?) and lets us photograph her there, even though the coppers on the terraces twitch when they see the camera and call in a couple of reinforcements.

