To ask pro-choice MNers to email your MPs? <this is not a request to vote on anything>

[EricNorthmansMistressOfPotions]

There is an article here about the proposed amendments to the health and social care bill which will force women to undergo 'independent' counselling before being allowed to choose to terminate a pregnancy. The assumption is that BPAS and the like have a financial investment in encouraging women to terminate and as such their counselling is biased. The stated goal is to reduce the number of terminations per year by forcing women to delay between seeking and receiving termination, and having to undergo additional counselling (political bias unknown, though easily guessed at) prior to the termination. ND hopes that woman will change their minds during this enforced extended waiting period.

If you think this is a shit idea you can email your MP by clicking this link

This is not a request to vote on anything at all

[kelly2000]

Bumbley, why do you think that if you write something down, that means it is a source. Whenever you do not want to answer you claim " we discussed this earlier" etc.
Not one anti-abortionist has provided any good arguement for discriminating against pregnant women. Pregnancy is more dangerous than abortion, if we care about the safety of women then we need to inform them about the risks of all alternatives, and tell them the risks of pregnancy. so far the claim has been a) pregnancy is natural and b) we should not inform as it is the practice not to!!!.

Abortion counselling should tell a woman that the risks to her health and life are greater if she continues with the pregnancy, as this is the truth and if women seeking an abortion are going to be offered independent advice then so should pregnant women, so they can get a chance to be told all the risks of pregnancy and its alternatives. After all according to Dorries this ammendement has no interest in stopping abortions, but just helping women.

[bumbleymummy]

No one has said it should be about that empusa.

[bumbleymummy]

Kelly, we covered this in great detail yesterday. It is not standard procedure to infirm any woman about the risks of pregnancy/childbirth so it is not as if women considering abortion are being excluded from that with some sort of agenda. If it was standard practice, then yes, they should be informed. If you think it is important for all pregnant women to be informed of the risks then why not campaign for it?

[kelly2000]

In the dailymail artcile the non-pregnant woman claimed to be 15 weeks. I wonder if anyone believed her or just realised she was wasting their time.

[kelly2000]

Bumbley, are you saying you do not have a password for academic journals, and only have access to the ones that get put up freely!

[Empusa]

bumbley Or less. Good counselling leads to someone doing what is right for them. Bad counselling leads to wrong decisions. Or is only abortion a wrong decision?

[bumbleymummy]

Good post dhokotera

[bumbleymummy]

"Darn it - Bumbley your argument is totally flawed in that the pro-life counselling does not have the woman's interest at heart. It only wants to save the baby.

Waving baby clothes at women who are in a crisis pregnancy is not good - and they do do that, amongst many other things- and it is certainly not an example of a 'failing'. It is what they do."

Obviously not in every case - as the article shows. You're generalising and jumping to conclusions again.

[kelly2000]

because pro-life is anti-abortion. Pro-choice means they believe that both pregnancy, and abortion can be the right choice. Giving counselling is not about persuading a woman not to terminate the pregnancy.

[bumbleymummy]

Or you can google it Kelly - and you don't need to login. You obviously didn't read all my posts if you missed the link I posted to the journal even though I have referred you to it twice now. Where did I say I didn't have them in front of me? Are you misreading things? I said I did have them in front of me.

[kelly2000]

Dhaok,
But why discriminate between women seeking an abortion, and women seeking to continue with the pregnancy. Surely women should be given all the facts about pregnancy. A woman is more likely to have physical mental illness and even die if she continues with the pregnancy and gives birth than if she has an abortion. So considering they are more at risk than women having abortions they also deserve to be counselled about the risks of continuing with the pregnancy. The counselling seems all about telling people about abortion, and not giving information about the risks of pregnancy. The people demanding this counselling claim they are doing it for women, not to stop abortions, so why avoid the nasty truths about pregnancy, it is just treating women like breeding cows. If you want to help women tell them about the risks of pregnancy, so they can make sure that pregnancy is the right choice.

[bumbleymummy]

Empusa - yes, there should be. You need to start somewhere.

[MyGoldfishIsEvil]

Oh, I have no doubt you're interested in the counselling all right Bumbley. In the same way Dorries is - to try and persuade women not to abort.

[MyGoldfishIsEvil]

Darn it - Bumbley your argument is totally flawed in that the pro-life counselling does not have the woman's interest at heart. It only wants to save the baby.

Waving baby clothes at women who are in a crisis pregnancy is not good - and they do do that, amongst many other things- and it is certainly not an example of a 'failing'. It is what they do.

[bumbleymummy]

Empusa, not necessarily but inadequate counselling could lead to more.

[MyGoldfishIsEvil]

Oh, and one good comment made on this thread aeons ago was that perhaps Marie Stopes and BPAS could completely segregate the counselling side from the abortion side of things - thus eliminating any perceived vested interest and be seen as independent?

[bumbleymummy]

Also, goldfish. Why would being pro-life mean that I am not interested in counselling?

[kelly2000]

I was referring to your earlier link

[Dhokotera]

I guess pro-choice means different things to different people. Read the article you linked pamplemorrouse and frankly do not see anything wrong with women considering abortion after being given all the facts about the abortion. Whilst there may be women that have an abortion and never ever think about it there are also many who years later have wished they could have made a more informed decision. Pro-choice is not about making a decision that tows the line of 'correct political' thinking but it is about making a personal decision for yourself after having had the opportunity to hear opinion from both sides of the coin. We can present counter evidence all day (is that not what research does?) that matches our positions on the matter but the bottom line is women ought to have the right to an informed choice (yes with all the nasty truths told as well). All I am saying is that there is no shame in writing to your MP and asking them to support greater access to independent counseling for women considering abortion.

[bumbleymummy]

Mygoldfish -" The pro-choice counselling is not sub-standard - but like any part of the NHS/private healthcare providers, there are bad examples of failings. Would you bin the lot?"

Well surely the same could apply to the other counselling? There are bad examples of failings such as the one you mention about 'abortion is wickedness' but care confidential did not come out with that in this instance. They provided an impartial counselling service - Marie stopes and bpac did not. It just seems like you're prepared to accept poor counselling from pro-choice providers and sweep their failings under the carpet but you'll criticise similar failings if/when they occur (ie. The ability to provide impartial advice) in pro-life organisations - even if they do show evidence of actually being impartial.

[MyGoldfishIsEvil]

Anyway, it's been a good discussion - sure Bumbley will be back with all sorts of 'refutes' to end the thread. But I'm going to leave it there. We'll have to wait and see what the parliamentary debate and vote decides this week. I'll post my MP's response on the other thread as well.

[kelly2000]

The link your provided went to the telegraph not the article. You then claimed the Danish study looked at only 69 women, when in fact it looked at 400, 000 so obviously you did not read it. And if you have online access to journals via athens or something, then why did you want me to link to it. You had the author, the journal, and the issue date that is all you needed to find it in the journal. You also said you did not have the journals in front of you.
I also do not understand why you used google if you have access to the journals online. That is not how you search journals, you just go to their site, log in, and then search the journal. Google searches do not turn up the actual articles, only articles about the articles.

[MyGoldfishIsEvil]

Precisely Empusa - not banning the experienced and (in general) very well respected Marie Stopes and BPAS.

[Empusa]

Also, on the MH issues. If it's about that at all, then they'd be campaigning for better access to counselling full stop? (eg. after abortion, after pregnancy, after miscarriage, or just in general)

[MyGoldfishIsEvil]

Sorry Bumbley, agree with Eric's post - the mental health issue is a red herring. Can you point me to the part of Dorries amendment that would address the mental health issues you refer to?