Senior Conservatives have played down the significance of Michael Howard's admission that he would vote for a lower legal limit to abortion if parliament gets another chance to review the policy.

"There is no suggestion we are going to turn this into an issue," a senior adviser told the Guardian last night.

Asked about abortion in a wide-ranging interview with Cosmopolitan some weeks ago, Mr Howard said: "I think what we have now is tantamount to abortion on demand. In the past, I voted for a reduction in the legal time limit to 22 weeks, and I would be prepared to go down to 20."

Mr Howard was referring to the modification, 15 years ago, of the 1967 Abortion Act when the limit was reduced from 28 to 24 weeks because medicine had lowered the point at which most foetuses could survive premature birth.

Interviewed as part of Cosmopolitan's pre-election coverage, Tony Blair says he "personally dislikes the idea of abortion" but has no plans to change the law. Charles Kennedy, a Catholic who voted for 22 weeks last time, says: "I don't know what I'd do now."

Tories said they had no intention of making abortion into an election issue, as it is in the United States.