Footnote to the preceding, Birds of a Feather Div.

Speaking of there being no need for lessons, something our conservatives don't need to teach British conservatives, it seems, is how to ignore or distort scientific fact for political purposes - as we can see from this bit from the Guardian (UK) for Monday:

The Conservative leadership has been attacked by leading scientists for distorting evidence to try to restrict abortion and limit key research on so called "hybrid" embryos.

On the eve of a series of Commons votes on the human fertilisation and embryology bill, one scientist accuses the Tory frontbench of misrepresenting his research on abortion to call for a cut in the upper limit. Another, who has worked in a Nobel prize-winning laboratory, accuses the frontbench of tabling "destructive amendments" to the parliamentary bill without speaking to senior figures in the scientific world.

The UK restructs abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy on the grounds that the fetus at that point is viable, while survival rates for premies just a week or two younger drop dramatically to less than one in five. The anti-choices want to cut back the limit to 22 weeks or even 20 weeks, thereby breaking, in the words of Liberal Democrat MP Dr. Evan Harris,

"the crucial link with what the medical consensus says is viability. Once that happens it becomes extremely difficult to defend any particular time limit against attack from anti-abortion campaigners."

Which of course is likely the point. In the course of this, Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley defended his call for a 22 week limit by citing the work of David Field, president of the British Association of Perinatal Medicine and lead author of a 12-year study into the survival of very premature babies.

But Field said last night he could not see how Lansley could draw this conclusion, because his report made clear there had been no change in the evidence in recent years.

While over the term of the study there had been some improvement in the survival rate of babies born at 24 or 25 weeks, there was no improvement in those born earlier: In the first six years of the study, the survival rate at 23 weeks was just 18.46% of those who got into a neonatal unit; over the second six years, the rate was 18.52%, "almost as identical as you can get it," Field said.

In short, Lansley lied.

Meanwhile, Dr. Robin Lovell-Badge, a stem cell biologist at the UK's National Institute for Medical Research, charged that a letter from the shadow health minister, Mark Simmonds, that went to all Tory MPs urging restrictions on so called "hybrid embryos" contained statements that were "absolutely not true" and misrepresented the state of the relevant science.

Still, the Tories seem prepared to press ahead with this as part of their "broken society" campaign theme, rattling on about "teenage abortions" and other social ills of the modern age while rattling off bogus claims about the science. I'd feel right at home there.