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

Agreed that this probably isn't an agenda that Cameron or the frontbenchers are especially keen to pursue, my point was rather that the culture they have fostered gives rise to people like Dorries and Sarah Palin- if you do a knee-jerk, patronising type of populism you take the debate to those people who really believe in knee-jerk populism.
In terms of superficial attractiveness of this policy, no I agree it's actually quite unpalatable for most people to engage with (I didn't actually use the phrase 'superficially attractive') but it is emotive and as such easy to take an extreme position on. I was myself wondering why the tabloids had been quiet about it but just found this incredibly distorted investigation from the UK's favourite misogynists
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2031572/Abortion-Mail-writers-investigation-counselling-services-poses-disturbing-questions.html

I've been a bit naughty I s'pose and have emailed 'my MP'. We recently left the country but still own property there (where we lived for years) so I have emailed that MP. I am and always will be a British Citizen, and just find this appalling.

Of course I'm aware of the insidious Nadine Dorries but have been prompted to do a bit of googling and background reading thanks to this thread. Sort of wish I hadn't - it's all too depressing for words.

Since having my DC I doubt I could ever have another abortion, but I will put my hand up and admit to being one of those women who had one in the past and felt nothing but utter relief once it was over, and have never regreted it for a second. My DC are longed-for and - especially DC1 - a fair while in coming, including 2 miscarriages (DC2 happened very quickly, luckily), all scans eagerly anticipated, yet I still don't regret my abortion for a second.

I'm sure there are many, many women like me who, also like me, would be extremely loathe to speak up with this opinion outside of an anonymous forum like this (which many women don't have access to), since having no regrets over an abortion is still so taboo.

On this basis, I am frankly appalled that these hard-won rights are being threatened.

I honestly don't understand her thinking on this - and am very keen to see what sort of support measures are put in place for the additional 60,000 additions to the UK population per year, as well as, crucially for their mothers. Until I see Nadine Dorries campaigning vigorously for this I won't be convinced that she has anything other than an insidious agenda of her own.

Btw, my friend is struggling with the fact she has to have an abortion. But no amount of compulsory counselling before she does it would feed or clothe her baby, it will just make it harder for her to do as the foetus gets bigger and more human.

Oops, meant EMBRYO!

Thank you, Hester, for your post. I'm going to read it again. Thanks.

I am appalled at that Cons MP on Newsnight trying to make out that Marie Stopes and BPAS has a 'vested interest' in abortion. But then, is quite happy to hand the "independent" counselling over to an organisation that has, and I quote directly from their training manuals, that 'abortion is a wickedness that grieves God's heart'. Yes, that is a direct quote from the Care Confidential counsellor's handbook which the BBC has had access to. Just disgusted.

Does anyone, other than serious pro-lifers, really want these kind of organisations preaching to vulnerable pregnant women? I agree with the doctor that said this will put women's rights back 25 years. I am actually speechless after watching that Newsnight piece.

Will update this thread with my (Cons) MP's response.

thanks from me to hester also. A very illuminating post

At the end of my wait I was 23 weeks pregnant. I spent six long, agonizing weeks pregnant after making my decision. I had to travel all over the country. That alone cost me every last penny I had. I lost count of the number of people who told me the facts, who made sure I was sure and above all were kind and non-judgemental.

In that perilous time for me, forced biased counselling could only have done harm to me and I can honestly say I would've found a way to stop being pregnant if I had been delayed past 24 weeks. I had the tablets ready to commit suicide with, if it came to it.

It doesn't need to be said and it shouldn't need to be said but I will say it. I had good reasons to want a termination.

It doesn't need to be said michelle. Your body, your choice. I'm just sorry you had to wait for so long x

Thank you Wilson. It means a lot

That is disgusting michelle Am very and :( that you (well, that ANYONE) had to go through that!!!

michelle I feel terribly upset for you that you were forced to wait until 23 weeks. I am 22wks pg now and your post has brought home to me the cruelty of every week's delay at a time when your body and perceptions of what is going on change daily. Why would anyone want to delay the process further?

Michelle :(

Michelle's post perfectly illustrates why mandatory counselling is such a bad idea.

So sorry you went through it Michelle! :(

e-mail sent and epetition signed, though I would agree with the poster who said that the wording of the petition could be a lot clearer and stronger, so it might not get much attention.

Thanks. Yes those last weeks to the cut off date were indescribably awful. That's what makes me so angry. There already are huge delays. WHY make more?

This was years ago for me but there are women out there waiting and waiting and waiting right now like beyondthelimit's friend. I'm so sorry for her.

She is being punished in a roundabout way. And we know nothing about her circumstances. It isn't right to play a blanket judge and jury on every woman in the country and hand out suffering like this.

I have to stop thinking about this for a while or else I'm going to be too angry to sleep.

Have also emailed / signed petitions etc. And agree with each and every one of the pro choice posts I ever read.

well the Guardian at least is pointing out the full horror of this. www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/aug/30/hurricane-irene-misogynistic-attitudes-scarier

(you will however have to laugh at Bachmann telling us all that Hurricane Irene is a message from God to 'rein in the spending' :D :D)

Someone pointed out on the dailymail article, that pregnant women do not get impartial advice if they say they want to go ahead with the pregnancy. Why is it that if I keep my child it is automatically assumed I know what is involved and the risks, and benefits, yet if I decide to terminate i am an airhead or needs to be advised by a group that calls abortion wicked.
If people do not believe in an abortion then they are wrong to put themselves in a position of power over women wanting abortions. GPs for instance should be made to advertise the fact that they refuse to refer so people can refuse to have them as their GP. I remember reading about a GP who wanted women to come to her so she could persuade them out of an abortion. She was telling the paper how she quoted the bible at some patients, how she asked some patients if their career was worth killing a child for, told the paper the race, age marital status and number of children of a particular patient who was thinking about an abortion so there was agood chance they could be identified and claimed th efact that a young woman who had had an abortion ran away crying when she say her in the stret was a sign that abortion was wrong for the girl! She was reported to the GMC but kept her job, whilst a muslim dentist who asked a muslim patient if she would wear a headscarf whilst he treated her for ten minutes and quoted the Koran to justify this was struck off. I do not agree with the dentist, but what he did was a thousand times better than this GP.
I thinl the conservatives need to remember they have a very slim grasp of parliament, and that the biggest group of non-voters are women of childbearing age. Do they really want us all to vote against them?

beyondthe limits,
In Denmark a GP reused to refer a woman for an abortion and it made the national news. The GP was interviewed, and came across as a real bitch, and I believe people withdrew from her practice which meant that her career went down the pan.

Can i also suggest that everyone sends Nadine Dorries a freedom of information request demanding all correspondance/meetings/dealings with etc she has with pro-life groups and religious groups inc. the conservative christian group, and those she wants to take over the impartial advisory role, and asking that she supplies the evidence for her claims that abortion providers give pro-abortion advice for profit. Anyone even a non-british citizen can ask for this, you do not need to pay or give your name or address, nor do you need any special forms you can just send and emails saying that this is a freedom of information request and you require this material. She has forty days to send you the information I believe. It might also be interesting to see her expenses, as I do not see why we should pay for anything to do with her anti-abortion agenda.

www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/30/judge-strikes-down-key-parts-texas-abortion-law/?test=latestnews#comment

If you want to see why we need to stop the like sof Dorries in her tracks, take a look at this article, and then click on the comments section. It is about a new law in Texas which requires that any woman who wants an abortion must undergo a sonnagram whether it is medically needed or not, and the doctor must make her look at it whilst they describe the foetus. If the woman is pregnant as a result of rape or incest she must tell the medical staff and sign a document stating this. A judge has ruled it unconsitutional but it is being appealed. One of its supporters is a republican presidential candidate. Do we want Britain to go down this road?

top thread. Emailed MP, and thanks.

Thanks for this thread and link

Have emailed

Ok, I look at this from a different angle. If a woman knows what she is doing, is making and informed decision and knows it is the right decision for her then why would she have a problem with looking at a scan? Enough people yesterday said women aren't stupid and know what they are doing and what the embryo/foetus looks like at the point they are having the abortion so why would they have a problem seeing it? Surely if they are feeling guilty at that point or having second thoughts then it spares them feeling that at a later date when it is too late to do something about it whereas if they are still set in their decision then they can proceed. Surely you don't want women to have abortions that they will regret? Isn't it one way of helping to prevent that?