How my twins have changed my mind

When my lovely twin daughters received their ALevel results this week, it was a proud moment for us all.

Lucy and Amy both achieved five straight As. We were all reflecting how far they'd come since they were fighting for life in an incubator in Bristol's Southmead Hospital.

Thinking of them then strengthens my view that our abortion laws must be reviewed. I have never been anti-abortion, and am still not against a woman's right to choose.

But the fact that foetuses almost as old as my daughters were when they were born 10 weeks early in 1986 can be terminated does make me feel that it is time to reconsider the law. They were born by emergency Caesarean after doctors discovered Amy's heart was not beating properly.

Watching them struggle between life and death in the neonatal intensive care unit was the worst six weeks of my life. That was in 1986.

The doctors were fantastic, and the care they received was first class. But today medical care for premature babies is even more advanced. We now know much more about the unborn child, and babies born very early can survive. It cannot be right to terminate pregnancies which are so far advanced that the baby could live outside the womb. Parliament must look again at this issue.

This autumn Lucy will be going to Bristol to study biology and Amy has a place at St Hugh's College, Oxford, to study politics, philosophy and economics.

I am so proud of them both. For me, they are a symbol of why the law must be reviewed. Nigel Jones is Liberal Democrat MP for Cheltenham