Yesterday, we published a report about the practice of ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centres’ (CPCs) in the UK. CPCs are pregnancy counselling centres which operate independently of the NHS. Before the recent flurry of press attention around these centres you might never have heard this term, but do a quick Google search and you’re likely to find information from reproductive rights groups in the U.S. outlining the tactics some CPCs use to ‘mislead and manipulate women’.
Set-up by anti-abortion groups with the intention of scaring women out of having abortions, these centres now have a reputation in the States for providing medical misinformation and directive 'counselling' to potentially vulnerable women.
Unfortunately our investigation into CPCs in the UK finds that some of the same tactics are being used over here. We identified 135 CPCs in the UK and recruited young women to volunteer as 'mystery shoppers' at just under a quarter of these centres. The majority (though certainly not all) of the centres visited were found to be providing 'counselling' that was misleading and/or biased and unprofessional.
For example, at a centre in Oxford run by the anti-abortion organisation LIFE, the counsellor claimed that "the increase in the possibility of breast cancer following termination of pregnancy" had been "reported with quite strong evidence". Cancer Research UK – the gold standard when it comes to evidence-based information on cancer – states that "pregnancies that end in miscarriage or abortion do not increase a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer."
A number of counsellors working at centres run by Care Confidential, the largest provider of CPCs in the UK, focused on purported negative mental health outcomes of abortion. A counsellor at one of their centres claimed that abortion could lead to anger and depression, "and as an extreme we understand that termination has been linked to crime."
Many of Care Confidential’s counsellors also mentioned 'post-abortion trauma', an invented condition which is not recognised by any medical bodies. A systematic review of abortion and mental health outcomes found that "the rates of mental health problems were the same whether (women) had an abortion or gave birth.” In other words, the evidence strongly indicates that abortion does not cause mental health problems.
Other 'counsellors' exhibited extremely unprofessional and – in several instances – unethical practice by sharing their own experiences of abortion, their religious views or value judgements on abortion, parenting and adoption. For example, one Care Confidential counsellor in Reading told the mystery shopper: “I do believe that God gives the gift of a baby.”
The anti-abortion organisation LIFE, which runs 26 CPCs in the UK, claims to provide ‘non-directive counseling'. But its 2012 accounts tell a different story, acknowledging quite frankly that LIFE are not reaching their goal of 'saving lives' of the 'unborn', since it’s "not reaching many who are the prime 'target' of our service, namely, women in danger of going down the abortion road."
Another CPC, set up by an anti-abortion organisation named Foundation For Life offers women ultrasound scans. This centre, the Tyneside Pregnancy Advice Centre, is clear that its motivations for doing so are to persuade pregnant women not to choose abortion:
"Focus on the Family estimate that up to 75% of women who see a scan of their baby will decide to proceed with the pregnancy… We have heard of about 20 women who have decided to keep their baby after their visit to the centre – some have already given birth. How encouraging to think that these lives have been spared and mothers protected from the trauma of abortion."
We are extremely concerned that women with unplanned pregnancies, looking for support with decision-making, are ending up at centres which are employing such tactics. In 2013 LIFE received a grant of almost £300,000 from the Big Lottery Fund, in part towards this type of counselling work. Many of these organisations also provide school workshops on pregnancy and abortion and a young person who doesn’t have an in-depth knowledge of nearby sexual health services – and how many young people do? - may well end up at such a centre after an internet search for advice. Care Confidential is signposted on the NHS Choices page on abortion, lending it credibility as a pregnancy counselling service, which unfortunately is not evidenced in some of its centres' services.
Our report calls for the organisations which promote and signpost to CPCs to fully assess the information they are giving, their affiliations and ethos. Any which are found not to be providing good quality, evidence-based information and impartial support should not be recommended or signposted to. We need to make sure that women with unplanned 'crisis' pregnancies are given the support they need to make informed choices, not scare tactics and misinformation.
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Guest post: "Abortion can lead to sexual abuse": why pregnancy 'crisis' centres must stop misleading women
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MumsnetGuestPosts · 12/02/2014 11:53
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