Good Morning Britain hosts Susanna Reid and Adil Ray grilled MP Ben Wallace on the ITV morning programme on Wednesday as he hit back on the Tory party’s position on abortion.
After a discussion about defence spending, the ITV presenters turned the conversation to abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which upheld the constitutional right to an abortion in the US.
The ITV programme played a clip of Tory MP Danny Kruger saying he doesn't agree women have ‘an absolute right to bodily autonomy’ in a Commons debate over the American abortion ban.
Adil asked the Defence Secretary to respond to the controversial claims, sparking a heated exchange on Good Morning Britain.
Mr Wallace said: “I take the view there is no such thing as an absolute ban on abortion.
“I think the only debate about abortion is what is the safe and medical timeline that can be delivered. It is a woman’s body. It is her body.”
As the minister noted that the MP, who represents the constituency of Devizes in Wiltshire, was a religious man, Adil replied that Tory MP’s had previously said there is “no room for religion in politics”.
He added: “Now in the defence of your fellow MP, he’s religious.”
But the minister took issue with the line of questioning and cut in to say: “Can I just say, I think it’s really cheap to try and link one MP’s view to the broader view of a political party.”
Adil then cut in as well to reply: “He’s an elected MP. He has a voice and a platform.”
Mr Wallace furiously replied: “It doesn’t make it the party’s policy on that. You try to infer that because my backbench colleague is a conservative MP, the Conservative party now doesn’t believe women have freedom over their body. It’s complete hogwash.”
Adil quickly came back saying: “I didn’t suggest for one minute it was a Conservative party policy. I just wanted you to respond to your fellow MP’s comments yesterday.”
Concluding the interview, the MP said: “I don’t agree with them. There we go.”
The decision to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade ruling is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half of US states.
Mr Kruger told the Commons yesterday afternoon he would “probably disagree” with other MPs about the US Supreme Court decision.
He said: “They think that women have an absolute right to bodily autonomy in this matter, whereas I think in the case of abortion that right is qualified by the fact that another body is involved.”
As MPs tried to speak over him, Mr Kruger added: “I would offer to members who are trying to talk me down that this is a proper topic for political debate and my point to the frontbench is I don't understand why we are lecturing the United States on a judgement to return the power of decision over this political question to the states, to democratic decision-makers, rather than leaving it in the hands of the courts.”
