A bid to prevent abortion providers offering counselling services to women seeking terminations in the UK was defeated in the Commons.
In a free vote MPs decided by 368 votes to 118 (majority 250) against the move in a defeat for Tory MP Nadine Dorries, who led the campaign to change the law.
All three main party leaders indicated they oppose the amendment, although Ms Dorries claimed David Cameron had been “blackmailed” by his Liberal Democrat coalition partners.
Under the proposed change to the Health and Social Care Bill, counselling would have been offered by “independent” providers rather than organisations connected with offering abortion procedures.
Ms Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) told MPs Mr Cameron had initially been “very encouraging” about her move but was then placed in an “impossible position” by the Lib Dems.
Ms Dorries insisted she did not want to restrict access to abortion.
She said: “I do not want to return to the days of back street abortionists. I am pro-choice. Abortion is here to stay.”
Ms Dorries said her amendment was about “a medical practitioner making an offer to a woman who presents at a surgery or their organisation with independent counselling – not compulsory”.
She denied her proposal aimed to “drive women into the arms of religious fundamentalists” and questioned how opponents could “object to a vulnerable woman being made an offer of counselling when she is suffering a crisis pregnancy”.
The Tory backbencher added: “It must be wrong that the abortion provider, who is paid to the tune of £60 million to carry out terminations, should also provide the counselling if a woman feels strong or brave enough to ask for it.
“If an organisation is paid that much for abortions, where is the incentive to reduce them?”
Her plan was co-sponsored by Labour’s Frank Field (Birkenhead).
She said Mr Cameron had helped her with the wording of her amendment before the Lib Dems exerted pressure on him.
She said: “I went to see the Prime Minister regarding this amendment and he was very encouraging. In fact it was at the Prime Minister’s insistence that I inserted the word ‘independent’.
“I attended a meeting at the Department of Health and at that meeting it was decided what the outcome, the process that would be implemented, to make this a reality.”
But she said a lobbying operation by former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris resulted in Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg putting pressure on Mr Cameron.
She said: “Basically the Liberal Democrats, in fact a former MP who lost his seat in this place, is blackmailing our Prime Minister.
“Our Prime Minister has been put in an impossible position regarding this amendment.
“Our Health Bill has been held to ransom by a former Liberal Democrat MP.”
Health Minister Anne Milton said the government was “supportive of the spirit” of the amendment” and would bring forward proposals for regulations after consultation.
Shadow health minister Diane Abbott said Ms Dorries’s amendment was a “shoddy, ill-conceived attempt to promote non-facts to make a non-case”.