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

mme Thank you for the link, it was both interesting and confusing perhaps I'm being dim, it seems to say that abortion in Germany is illegal but the church can counsel and give abortion certificates up to 12 weeks.

Valhalla I've already said that the type of counsellor should be one that is completely impartial. That aspect of the proposal I do not agree with.

I've also said that these are not my personally feelings, I'm thinking like a lawyer, and I am a lawyer.

But this pro-choice thing is a misnomer. It's technically illegal to abort a baby just becasue someone doesn't want it and for no other reason.That is the case legally and not my personal feelings.

A1980, please read this

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/aug/02/abortion-pregnancy-counselling-found-wanting

Oh I know iskra. It's a load of shit.

If they're going to make women do it then they should damn well send them to a proper, impartial, psych with no hidden agenda or associations.

'it would have to be an impartial / independant counsellor or psychologist'

And who would fund that? The state can't afford to provide counselling for those suffering from clinical depression. Ask your GP. Most don't offer anything on the NHS for those with clinical depression unless it's classed as moderate to severe, and then the waiting list to even be assessed is months long. The NHs budgets for mental health services are already stretched to breaking point. In fact, possibly the best way to get the government to back down on this would be to add an ammendment that says the NHS will provide and fund this 'independent' counselling and guarantee that the women will be seen within 2 weeks. They would drop it like a hot rock if it had these cost implications.

By making it a condition that no group that provides abortion services can provide the counselling they are practically guaranteeing that only pro life organisations will be in a position to provide it, legally and financially. They already do provide 'counselling' - see the link to the Guardian article for some choice examples, including showing the woman baby clothes .

I think that there is a lot of confusion about the clinics and how they are funded. The majority are registered charities, and as such, non-profit organisations.

The idea of a cooling off period is laughable. The reason women go to these clinics is often to avoid the wait that is forced upon them by NHS bureacracy and underfunding. Women who know what they want to do from when the condom breaks end up having surgical procedures under general anaesthetic because they're 10 weeks + by the time they are through the system.

Counsellors aren't in that group.

I know, but I think a counsellor could recognise depression when they saw it. It just gets too complicated the more you think about it. You'd actaully need a psychiatrist every time.

It just gets more daft a proposal

Women who know what they want to do from when the condom breaks end up having surgical procedures under general anaesthetic because they're 10 weeks +

Morning after pill?

I had a couple of condom break accidents myself at Uni. I got the morning after pill.

"The state can't afford to provide counselling for those suffering from clinical depression."

Yep, 12 years of severe depression and I've only just been referred. Waiting times are huge.

If the waiting times for counselling were anywhere near the time I've had to wait, you'd be almost full term and way beyond being able to get an abortion. Even if you started the process at 5 weeks.

A1980 MAP will only work if you notice at the time.

The MAP is not 100% either though A1980

I want to write to my MP, but he is an anti choice, Catholic, 77 year old man who spends his time holding court in the local pub. He has been our area's MP for over 20 years as there is no viable alternative for someone like me to vote for.

I am so depressed that someone like him represents me when it comes to an issue that I feel so strongly about.

A1980, I realise and respect that you were speaking purely as a lawyer. I was questioning the proposals using remarks that you'd made to illustrate my point, not criticising you. Sorry. :)

Yama, he still has to take into account your views.

And undoubtedly there are a tiny minority of women who have multiple abortions. Whilst we might judge them for how they live their lives, I do wonder why some people seem to think that the best way to treat people who repeatedly fail to take control of their own bodies is to make them responsible for a child???

It's very easy to focus on the teenagers and those having sucessive terminations. And by doing so avoid the fact that thousands of the women having abortions are over 25 and often already have at least one child. These are not children acting on a whim, they are mature adults who know that they do not want to continue the pregnancy. They are not frightened of their parents reactions or scared of being a mother. They already are.

banjaxed why shy away from the word abortion? It is what it is surely. No one is calling them anything provocative though I could post provocative terms but have no wish to offend anyone by doing so. Provocative would be some of the slogans the nuts and extremists who are anti abortion use.

I'm not one of those I believe that in all probability I couldn't abort but could never sit in judgement over those that have. I couldn't adopt a pro-life or pro-choice stance, preferring to think "There but for the grace of whatever higher power you believe in, go I".

"banjaxed why shy away from the word abortion?"

The point is that they aren't solely abortion clinics. It'd be like me describing my old GP's as a Physio, just because it was one of the services they offered.

And do you know how effective the MAP is? Even if taken within 24 hours it's not 100%.

I love that you choose to focus on that rather than the fact that someone who goes to their GP within days of a period being late can end up waiting until 10 weeks+ to get an abortion.

A1980 getting the morning after pill seems to be getting harder, with pharmacists still allowed to refuse it on religious grounds, and I feel for any woman who has to traipse to multiple pharmacies in a panic, being refused what she needs, probably feeling very judged as well.

It seems that you're damned whatever you do if you're female, and it's OK to mess us around making life harder for us because hey, we couldn't possibly be trusted to make our own major decisions. Being female we have neither the brains nor the moral sense to do so after all...

And to the poster above who believed that many woman have abortions casually - let's see some evidence of that, ok? I am sure that there are a small minority of women who do use abortion casually, but should they not be the most compelling group to be allowed to have abortions, since they are clearly completely unsuited to be parents?

Thanks pample but I don't think he would. I just feel like I dont want to draw attention to myself over something like this, I live in a very small, quite deprived part of the north west and I would be worried about attaching my name and address to the email. Pathetic, I know

In practice we have abortion on request. I wish the legislation reflected that.

On the issue of mental health to make a real diagnosis of a mental health issue takes several weeks often months after indepth consultations with many involved in the person's life, for my son it was tracking his life from birth, talking to his school, the SENCO's, talking to me, observing him in school and in social settings, then discussions with an entire team of mental health professionals who need to agree on a diagnosis over the best part of four months before they were prepared to diagnose a mental health condition.

An untrained counsellor deciding an abortion is OK on the grounds of the mother's mental health being likely to be detrimentally affected if they continue with the pregnancy is professional dishonesty. SO the law yet again is as ass.

Which is just an observation not a stance on pro-choice or anti-abortion.

Hops back on to the fence.