Nadine Dorries MP was left "frustrated and completely exhausted" after losing her fight to change the abortion law on Tuesday night.

For 18 months the Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire has spearheaded a campaign to cut the upper limit at which an abortion can take place from 24 to 20 weeks.

But the proposed change was defeated in a free vote in the House of Commons by 332 to 190.

Mrs Dorries said: "I was flabbergasted by what went on in parliament.

"I despaired when I heard speeches from MPs which included information that just was not true.

"I also spoke to MPs who obviously hadn't read the bill that they were soon to be voting on – how can they say they represent the people?"

During her speech to parliament, the former nurse gave a graphic account of when she was witness to a "botched" termination where a foetus "gasped for breath through mucous and amniotic fluid" before dying seven minutes later.

A second vote to reduce the upper limit to 22 weeks was also rejected in the first major debate on abortion in 18 years.

In England and Wales there were 193,700 abortions last year – a rate of 18.3 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, which Mrs Dorries said was higher than any other western European country.

At the official launch of her campaign two weeks ago, Mrs Dorries said the law change would stop the UK becoming the "abortion capital of Europe" and stop 2,500 "frankly barbaric" terminations taking place each year.

However, over the past few months, doubts were raised over some of the facts used by Mrs Dorries to gain support for the issue.

Despite Tuesday's result, Mrs Dorries was still pleased with what the campaign achieved.

She said: "We've worked hard over the past 18 months and we've changed the view of a lot of people who would previously have considered a later abortion.

"If the life of a single child has been saved by the campaign, I'm happy."

Mrs Dorries has vowed to continue working on projects which will better the sex education and awareness of the country's young people.

She added: "I am definitely more of a social politician and I am a person who likes to campaign.

"There are great chasms between what policies are meant to achieve and how they actually affect the families across the country.

"I'll now have more time to concentrate on more of these issues."