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

OP, thanks for link - and thread. I have signed and shared.

'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'

As far as I know it's a doctor that does that. Two doctor's signatures are required.

I was listening to this debate on Radio 4 today. I can't help thinking how selfish a lot of the debate is - "rights" and "choice" seem to be everything. I can't help but feel we are losing some of our humanity over this. New life is very special and it should remain so. I think if you can justify your reasons for abortion to yourself then go ahead - whatever these may be but not because you feel you have to because it's what you should be doing these days. I think we are in danger of going to far in accepting abortion as a form of social control. The pressure to abort because you would be a single mother and possibly living on taxpayers money for example. I nearly aborted over this very issue and in fact nothing turned out the way I thought it would when I was pregnant.
I have also had an abortion when I was younger which I know was right and I can't see anyone talking me out of. So it wouldn't have mattered if I had had counselling.
I think the default stance should be expecting a baby not expecting to abort unless everything is perfect in your world.

"Legally you annot just choose to abort a baby"

Now see that's where I think the law should be changed. No woman should have to seek permission to have an abortion.

I've sent the email to my MP. I have to admit he's quite good at replying even if it does take a while and I have to stop and think why he's sending me a reply.

OP, Thanks for that link in your original post; it's really good and easy to use.

The e-petition doesn't mention the proposed counselling amendment but rather tackles the Two Doctors Farce - i.e. the farce of two doctors and the women engaging in a bizarre conspiracy to pretend that there is a danger to the woman's mental or physical health.

I believe that a woman or girl should be trusted to say whether or not she wishes to be pregnant, and if not to have the quickest, safest termination possible.

The farce of 'pretending' to be mentally frail enough to qualify a termination is just so fucking offensive and counter-productive, it is the pile of shit on which Nadine Dorries is a buzzing, shit-licking bluebottle.

I have emailed MP and signed petition.

When i sought help from Marie Stopes many many years ago i was met with a very vocal, very much pro-life counsellor who terrified the living daylights out of me.

I have clicked the link and sent it off though because I a pro-choice and hate the government forcing health decisions on us.

events for a real diagnosis of mental health it takes several weeks, monthsmeven, GPs can't diagnose they can only refer for most mental health diagnosis.

It doesn't matter how good a GP is, it's not reliable to diagnose mental health on the basis of what is often just a couple of 30 minute sessions during a period when a person is in a crisis, that's not mental health, that's panic, fear, confusion etc.

It might turn out to be a genuine mental health issue but I don't see how you can diagnose that within 7-14 days in many cases of finding out you are pregnant when none existed or was even suspected before.

Again neither prochoice or anti abortion just pointing out the flaws.

Personally? I think the 'mental health' aspect and the fact that another doctor has to rubber stamp your GP's decision (providing of course your own GP is pro-choice and lets you make your own decision in the first place) is unutterably stupid and a throwback to the past when clearly the little lady couldn't be expected to make her own choice about her own body and there had to be controls over GPs to make sure they weren't signing off on hundreds of abortions and, like, acting in their patients best interest.

The law is an anomaly and should be challenged and changed.

However, this amendment is not that change. It is ND at her worst, trying to rake up an issue of perceived vested interest where really, she won't be happy until abortion is swept back to the dark ages.

It is pretty shocking that women are only allowed to exercise this control over their bodies if they can show that if it does not happen they will be mad or dead

Sardine isn't it, I hadn't thought about it in those terms before but there were some interesting posts about the legal aspects upthread that really brought that out for me.

now actually. And we still believe that UK is generally pro-choice? Not that much of a choice, is it?

It is a matter to be

Women should have the power to make a (well informed) decision about this for themselves.

No it's not that much of a choice.

In practice I think that women can get abortions fairly easily but the law is hideously outdated.

Wilson and Sardine, Precisely. Women only have rights to bodily autonomy by pretending to be unhinged or ever so poorly.

It is one big bloody mad conspriacy, and an insult to women, to doctors and to this once intelligent, liberal country.

If Nadine Dorries manages to fuck up this situation for women even more, I would hope there is a legal challenge out there. I have a right to MY family life and MY private life; and that includes to the right to end a pregnancy.

Sorry don't agree I think that anyone under 16 should defiantly get counselling also if this is your second termination also contraception

Termination should only be available with these two things

Link to article containing the views of the head of the Royal College of General Practitioners, who has warned that government moves to shake up pre-abortion counselling for women could create new barriers and set the system back 25 years.

thank you for link i shall be

no surprise who is behind this, why is it so hard to understand that a women may fall pregnant and just not want to be she does not need to be told how she will cope financially or emotionally she just does not want to carry on with the pregnancy full stop

it just buys into this is the worse decision a women can make and she will live with the guilt forever, for many the decision is not a hard, there is no guilt the counselling should be for women who do find it difficult to deal with and need support after

And setting the system back 25 years is exactly what nd and the groups she fronts are after.

If pro life organisations, like the ones advising and being listened to about policy change, provide counselling it will be to the detriment of the most vulnerable.

I am particularly well placed to know what pro life counselling might be like because I know some pro life counsellors and was brought up by someone active in a pro life movement. This had a big impact on me when I was a pregnant teenager and in no way left me better qualified to work out what to do.

There is a fundamental lack of respect for women in theses organisations that seek to give voice to that which has no independent life.

So how exactly will this work then? What powers will the 'independent' counsellors have? If a woman just repeats ad infitum 'my mind is made up thank you' or 'sorry I'm an atheist' does the counsellor have some sort of input into the final decision to say 'don't think she should have this procedure? Or is it just some sort of delaying tactic?

I've never had an abortion. I think myself lucky to have never been in that situation but a close friend of mine has. She agonised over the decision. Twenty years later she still thinks it was the right one, as do I - violent, abusive, alcoholic ex. No amount of counselling would have changed her mind at the time, quite rightly.

Nadine Dorries was Cunt of the Day on Twitter for this very reason. Have signed the petition.

Thanks for the links, have emailed my MP, she's quite good at replying and is quite supportive of women's rights, and signed the petition and shared.

Unbelievable! This government won't be happy until all women are back chained to the kitchen sink in unhappy marriages with absolutely no rights whatsover.

'Nadine Dorries says that by offering independent counselling, 60,000 of the 200,000 abortions each year could be prevented.'
Is she seriously saying that Marie Stopes are talking women into having abortions to boost their coffers? That's a very serious allegation.
Also, if the counselling were independent surely you could not assume the outcome would be fewer abortions. Unless you had a hidden agenda?
Surely the better way to reduce the number of abortions would be better family planning advice to help avoid some of the unplanned pregnancies in the first place?
It's also somewhat ironic that the women that ND hopes to talk into keeping their babies may be looking for a termination because they don't feel they have the right personal circumstances to raise a child- the very mothers that her party regularly tries to demonise.

"It is pretty shocking that women are only allowed to exercise this control over their bodies if they can show that if it does not happen they will be mad or dead"

It's absolutely disgusting.