You say abortion, I say adoption...

"Will these ministers have the guts to follow their conscience?" asks Ruth Dudley Edwards in today's Daily Mail, where she calls upon Catholic ministers to vote against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill. Edwards is on her usual barnstorming form: "One of the mysteries of life under New Labour is that the beliefs of a majority of religious people were trampled on so comprehensively under the devoutly Christian Tony Blair, who converted to Catholicism after leaving office," she harrumphs. "An example is the way in which Catholic abortion agencies were not exempted from equality laws that forced them to offer children for adoption by gay couples." Whoa there - "abortion agencies"? As any hard-bitten Dawkinsite or woolly agnostic knows, Catholic abortion agencies are about as common as married popes. Monkey fears Mail editor Paul Dacre is likely to view this lapse as a mortal sin. Let's hope Edwards or whichever hapless sub was in charge of the piece don't find themselves excommunicated.