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

sardine,
maybe we should all take our NHS trusts to court of they bring this legislation in and say as we were not provided with the information we have a right to compensation. I cannot see how they can argue that counselling is compulsary for abortion, but not for pregnancy considering the risks are greater with pregnancy.

I don't dounbt that many people regret abortions. That's the nature of the beast. Noone's sying wooohooo i Had a great abortion. It's a sad circumstance to find yourself in. You seem to be suggesting seeing a scan would be a guarantee of excellent mental health and no regrets afterwards. Clearly that's ridiculous.

yes michelle I remember you well. Still making false accusations I see.

Kelly - Chandellina gave examples of women who may find themselves considering abortions but not actually being sure if it's what they want. The do exist, as much as you would like to overlook them.

MyGoldfish, So what are you complaining about if you don't think it's going to change anything?

SQ, I don't think people should eat meat if they aren't prepared to face where it comes from/ kill an animal themselves tbh. I'm a vegetarian because I know I couldn't :) I think thats a whole other thread though....

bumbley, But you want to do things to women against their consent. You want them to be forced against their will to go to a sonnogram, yet you admit you do not think informed consent abou pregnancy is good. can you answer that plain and simpley, do you think women should have to undergo counselling where she is told every single negative thing about pregnancy, childbirth, and child rearing before she continues with the pregnancy, even if that will lead to an increase in abortion. If a woman knows she wants her baby then surely she has no problem with being sat down and told there is a small chance she will die because of the pregnancy! Or are you just going to skirt around that issue.
Oh and by the way the republicans who supports this also think creationism should be taught in school science classes, and one believes in slavery. Not exactly in the best comapny there really.

The thread is all still there so have a think before you decide I'm making false accusations.

Your researched all the details I already knew about for me, out of the kindness of your heart.

But what difference should that make to me, right?

kelly - the counselling isn't going to be compulsory - you must have missed a few posts.

Boo - it allows people to decide whether they can face the reality or not at a time when they can actually change their decision if they want to rather than regretting it later.

Where did I say informed consent about pregnancy wasn't good? Aren't you given a book about pregnancy and lots of info when you go for your first appt? I disagreed with the idea of showing peopel mortuaries and complicated pregnancy patients because, by that logic, you would also have to show those who are considering abortion those who have suffered complications from that. I'm pretty sure you aren't arguing for that though - are you?

Dorris wants to make it compulsory, but again you said women should have informed consent about abortion. Do you think women should be given all the facts about pregnancy and childbirth to make an informed decision about whether to keep the baby? One can only make an informed decision with all the information about all the alternatives. telling women about abortion, but skipping over the risks of pregnancy and childbirth is not giving women the information to make an informed decision about abortion.

ah kelly - you're falling into the trap of thinking that because I don't disagree with one idea I must agree with them all. Shall I go and find some pro-choicers with some unsavoury opinions and throw them back at you?

bumbley I don't think it will stop abortions that people genuinely want - as opposed to????? Abortions that people kinda think they might want, och no, I'll just keep it, oh hang on though, I've got that wedding next week, och I'll just get rid then??? Every woman who has an abortion genuinely wants it. I really don't see this line of 'undecideds' that you do.

You believe showing women a scan of their unborn child will upset them, shock them and guilt them into keeping their baby. You believe that any baby born is better than any baby terminated. I do not. I do not believe that. I do not believe the rights of the feotus trump the rights of the woman. Your approach would simply add emotional distress into what should be - has to be - an unemotional, medical decision.

But more to the point - does it say somewhere that ND's independent counselling will include a scan? Did I miss it? Or are we spending yet more time debating yet another side issue?

Finally pro-choicers always stoop to personal insults. No they don't, and no they haven't.

The book you are given skips over the risks. There is not one set of statistics telling you the risks of illness and death. If you want informed consent, then women should be sat down and told there is a small risk that they will die and given the statistics on the amount of maternal deaths in the UK and then move on to the illnesses. The risks to a womans health in the Uk is far greater is she continues with the pregnancy then if she has an abortion, and surely women considering either abortion or continuing with the pregnancy should be told this if informed consent is so important.

No Kelly - she doesn't. Read back to Chandellina's post for a direct quote. She wants to make it compulsory for doctors to offer it.

Do you think it's ok to tell a woman about abortion and skip over those risks then? I'm pretty sure there's a few people who will jump on you for suggesting that you spout 'pro-life propaganda' about abortion risks at a poor woman who is considering abortion.

Because, Bumbley, as was reported on Newsnight last night, these 'independent' counselling services are not impartial. The BBC got hold of Care Confidential's training manual and it had such delectable quotes as ' abortion is a wickedness which grieves God's heart'. I object to this change in the Law because I don't want vulnerable women subjected to this sort of pro-life propaganda in the name of 'independent' counselling. It is anything but.

"Shall I go find some pro-choicers with unsavory opinions...?"

Yes, do. I'd love to know what your version of an unsavory opinion is, since you're clearly immune to producing one yourself.

Bumbley this is just ridiculous.

You are acting as though women are too stupid or deluded to make decisions for themselves without having a professional shove pictures under their nose to spell matters out.

When you decided to try for a baby did you expect people to shove photos of fistula injuries, inflamed caesarian wounds, cracked nipples, infected episiotomy scars, varicose veins and other horrors under your nose in order to educate you to the reality of the possible outcomes? Of course not. You felt, rightly, that you'd gathered the evidence that you needed in order to make a decision and should be allowed to act on your own decision like a grownup.

Please give other women the same credit. If they feel they've got enough info then why force them to undergo a scan? if they don't feel they have enough info they can request counselling or find out from plenty of other sources what a 10 week old foetus looks like.

besides which - I'm completely baffled as to why we're spending all this time discussing scans since this isn't even part of the legislation, thank god.

well, i have trotted out my story before so apologies to those who have had to read it again - but I made what can only be called a terrible decision to have an abortion and I think what Dorries is proposing is a very positive step toward helping women make informed choices.

I became pregnant unexpectedly (ignorant of how quickly BCP would stop working) and though I wanted to get pregnant within the next year or so I was taken by surprise. I was scared of motherhood, and also didn't want my husband to think I'd accidentally on purpose gotten pregnant. So my immediate reaction was - get rid of this baby fast.

I didn't want to wait for an NHS abortion (estimated 3-4 weeks) so I went to Marie Stopes. There was no offer of counselling. For box ticking purposes, I was asked why I was seeking an abortion. I literally didn't have an answer. I asked what possible reasons might be. They said sometimes people say for financial reasons. I said - oh yeah, ok, though my combined income with DH at the time was around £100k. No further questions asked.

There was no consultation with doctors. Two doctors were asked by a nurse or whoever to sign the papers but neither exchanged a word with me.

I was 33, happily married, financially solvent, and keen to have a family.

Two years later I was still all those things, but undergoing a series of miscarriages, failed IVFs and yes - enormous regrets about the abortion.

Would I have changed my mind with counselling? Who knows but I'd say there's a pretty good chance I would have slowed down from my panicked state and thought for a minute about what the pregnancy meant in the big picture.

Would it have hurt to offer me counselling? Of course not.

Incidentally, I was scanned by Marie Stopes as a matter of course so that they could date the pregnancy. They told me I was around 6 weeks. I didn't ask to look at the screen. Only later through IVF, etc. did I find out what the embryo actually would have looked like at that point. I was under that old illusion that there would only be a few cells at that stage.

I think it might have helped me be better informed to have seen the screen. Why gloss over the facts? Just like any meat-eater should know what killing animals involves - it doesn't mean you don't still decide to eat meat, but you have a greater sense of your choice and what it means.

Wilson, go back and read chandellina's examples. Are you seriously suggesting that no woman has an abortion that she is a bit unsure of and lives to regret it? Really?

I think if showing a woman a scan of the baby she is about to abort makes her feel upset/shocked or guilty then she has the right to feel those emotions and decide whether she can cope with them - I consider that making an informed decision.

No, the scan was mentioned by an earlier poster talking about how it had been brought in in Texas and they could see the UK moving that way. Despite it being a bit of a jump to make lots of people jumped in to express their disgust (and do some Tory-bashing as well iirc ) and I gave my opinion which sees it from a different angle.

"Finally pro-choicers always stoop to personal insults. No they don't, and no they haven't."

Oh yes they do - I'm getting quite a nice collection now :)

Dorries has written several times that she wants to make it compulsary, she has also said her aim is to stop abortion.
I have no problem with women being told about the risk of abortion, they already are as it is a medical procedure. i just think that women should be given the facts about pregnancy. Do you think women should be told about the statistics about maternal deaths and ill health in the UK because at the moment they are not, and the abortion counselling Dorries wants is to skip talking about the risks of pregnancy? The risks of pregnancy and childbirth are far greater than those of abortion.
Wilson, the scan issue came up because Republican creationists have passed a law in texas that requires doctors to force women to undergo a scan, force them to look at the screen, and make them listen to an description of the foetus. If the woman is a victim of rape or incest she has to inform the medical staff even if she does nto wish to, and sign a document to that effect. I think this is the way Britain will try to go if people like Dorries gets their way. I think we should all make freedom of information requests to Dorries about her dealings with anti-abortionists (see my earlier post)

MyGoldfish - you must have come in at a later stage in this thread then because you'll see that even I objected to counselling being biased. I said that if it was going to be made compulsory (when we thought that was what was being suggested) that it would need to be independent from either side - completely impartial.

bumbley of course I don't think there are no women who regret having abortions, though I would venture that many of them more regret the circumstances that led them to seek an abortion in the first place, rather than the decision itself. I believe very few of these women would have changed their mind on seeing a scan though, and that all that would have done is made them feel worse in the long run.

I do think that society 'expects' women to regret having an abortion though, and there's plenty evidence from this thread that many don't. Because they made an informed decision that was right for them at that time.

TYV - Actually, I pretty much heard every birth horror story under the sun when I was pregnant - people always seem to want to share those stories rather than the nice, gentle, easy births unfortunately! I suppose you could compare that (in a kind of reverse way) to people always wanting to focus on the woman who know everything about abortion and are 100% sure of their decision and never have a single regret and disregard all the women who approach it in a kind of shocked, confused way, think they have all teh infromation and go through with it and then live to regret it.

Kelly thanks for reminding me about the freedom of information post, I'll do that right away then I MUST do my work. Back later bumbley - don't miss me too much

But that is the whole point - this is not about people's opinions on abortion. This is about legislation which will allow these pro-choice organisations to counsel women - defined as indendepent but definitely not impartial.

One of the organisations which will be seen (under the amendment) as an 'independent' counselling service does preach these opinions. The BBC has it's training manual. It is not impartial - that's why we are objecting.

Thank you for sharing your story goodnight moon - I hadn't actually heard it before and I'm really sorry that you feel the way you do. Unfortunately, you are one of the very women that so many people on this thread have been trying to ignore and pretend that you don't exist. :(