Sometimes it's hard to be a woman!

Jeremy (rhyming slang) Hunt has struck again. Hardly is the ink dry on his new contract as Health Secretary than he's declaring that the abortion limit should be reduced from 24 to 12 weeks. Not that this is government policy - yet. In fact, the Prime Minister was quick to say it isn't. But it's alarming that the idea is being floated in the week that the Tory party conference is due to take place. Guess what delegates are going to be talking about over their G&Ts? Even if Hunt isn't floating the idea on behalf of the party, how can anyone have faith in a minister whose first act in the job is not to sort out the mess that is the NHS down south but to push a personal view - not backed up by anything as dull as scientific fact - on this issue in a way that is bound to alarm many women? A lot of them with the vote, I might add, and prepared to use it.

I'm lucky in that I've never had to make the choice whether or not to have an abortion. And I use the word lucky deliberately. A friend of mine, mother of two now grown-up children, once put it simply: You're either on the pill or you're pregnant - and even on the pill you're not 100% protected. This is a complicated subject, not - to me - a simple matter of right or wrong. There's a personal story behind every abortion. I've heard it suggested that many young women use abortion as their preferred method of contraception. That is downright insulting.

Since conception, contraception and abortion are issues personal to each individual woman, what business is it of Hunt's what limit is put on abortion? This may be a crude explanation but here goes: (anti-)abortion and (anti-)contraception play well with certain types of voters in the USA. There's a presidential election coming up over there. I've already been told by an American friend that she'll be voting for Romney because she could never vote for a candidate who 'favours abortion.' She and her politics are straight from the Bible Belt. She's sure there are many people like her in the USA. The Tory party loves most things coming out of the USA - deregulation of business, lower taxes for the rich, reducing the power of the state - and I suspect that using (anti-)abortion as a vote-winner is another import from a society that is radically different from that of the UK. I live in hope that UK society is less likely to get excited about single-issue politics.

This issue is ultimately about women's health and politicians like Hunt need to stop chucking it around like a political football.