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

maypole so a disturbed 15 year old who has been raped by her uncle, say, and is so traumatised and upset and angry at a system that should have protected her refuses the counselling she (obviously) needs - you'd make her go through with the pregnancy? That's nice. Real nice.

Of course the under-16s in this situation should be offered counselling, masses and masses of counselling, but FFS you can't limit their access to abortions if they refuse the help on offer. How does a young girl being forced to carry on a pregnancy help anyone? How?

Dorries 'prevented' abortions (just presuming for a minute her 60,000k figure has any basis) would be born to women who presumably had very good reasons for wanting an abortion in the first place. A lot of them single women. The Tory scapegoat of the century.

I genuinely, genuinely do not understand the right wing mindset on this issue. It is as if they want more babies to be born, so that they can get angrier and angrier with the mothers, and deny them more and more. And perhaps blame the babies as they grow for future social unrest.

Another even more disturbing possibility is that they genuinely believe in unwanted birth and childrearing as a form of punishment for wantonness. The Republican/ Christian Right view in the States is quite openly like this. We may well be going that way (a self-righteous poster above echoed the same viewpoint).

The next step will be mother and baby 'homes' akin to the Magdalene Sisters institutions in Ireland, where wayward women can be housed and punished for their immorality until their babies are born and taken away from them for adoption by solid Christian families.

Some pro-lifers seem to believe that life begins before birth - and ends just before birth. They're the kind of people who happily vilify single mothers and punish their children because their mothers - gasp! - had sex.

WilsonFrickett I suggest if a 15 year old girl was rapped it would be irresponsible not to ensure she has counselling.

To be fair you are airing on the dramatic and the most likely thing is a 15 year old has a fumble in the park with someone who she barley knows while half cut and falls pregnant again she needs counselling

In 2011 their is no reason why someone should fall pregnant if they do want to be barring assaults

If you pregnant and don't want to be but did not take any steps to stop your self getting pregnant and then went on to leave it so long you needed a abortion you need to see someone

If you have more than one abortion you need to see someone

Talking things trough with a trained professional never harmed any pregnant women having abortion with out taking to anyone sometimes under pressure or in a desperate moment can harm women

I don't understand what your issue with getting women to talk trough why they are a- pregnant in the first place
B- what their options are
C- and what their plans are not to be pregnant again

If their not willing to talk things trough they can't really want an abortion

And of course it's a women choice if you are paying and the tax payer is not footing the bill.

To be honest if you never went in the room with the councillor you cannot say you would not have wanted to talk

Many people refuse to talk to councillors or reckon they don't need to and when they get in their it all come pouring out

Sorry but unless you were actually in front of a councillor you cannot say for sure what you would do.

I also I very sure if someone said see a councillor or you cannot have a abortion you would not of said right then I am keeping the baby because you said your self you really wanted a abortion you would of gone in their and talked

I can't get up the mental energy to say more than many thanks for starting this thread, EricNorth...

'In 2011 their is no reason why someone should fall pregnant if they do want to be barring assaults'

Seriously? You believe that? I must have missed it when the medical profession discovered that ovaries have an off switch.

Condoms can split. The morning after pill is not 100% even if it is taken within 24 hours. And if you're taking the pill daily how do you know that it's failing to work and you need the MAP? You can take it every day, never miss a dose and still end up pregnant.

The issue, surely, is not that counselling is being offered. Counselling is already offered. It's the insertion of a second lot of counselling, which will take time to organise - thus robbing the pregnant woman of something she may not have much of - time.

And who is going to pay for this second lot of counselling, when the NHS and its budgets are already strained?

This is, let's make no bones about it, a way of preventing women who want an abortion from getting one.

Nice. A lovely way to support women and their rights in the 21st century.

I will be sending my email today.

There are enough unnecessary hoops to jump through as it is.

maypole yes indeed, I did err on the side of the dramatic to illustrate an important point - I don't believe access to a safe abortion should be conditional on anything. You shouldn't 'need' to have counselling (although of course it shoud be offered, freely and quickly and I agree that there should be a special focus on young women in this area). You shouldn't 'need' to be married. You shouldn't 'need' to already have children. And, as someone so memorably said upthread, you shouldn't 'need' to be at risk of going mad or dying either.

And FWIW 'forced' counselling doesn't acheive anything, any person who works in the field of addictions, say, would agree that a person doesn't gain anything from entering counselling to please someone else. I'm pretty sure if I was in the position of needing a termination and you 'forced' me to attend counselling I would not be at my most open. I would be focussing on doing what I had to do to get what should be my most basic right - control over my own body.

And I think you owe spoons an apology.

I've signed the petition and sent the email. ND horrifies me more and more each day.

Well if they get paid by the NHS then they're still getting paid. I don't think they do it for nothing

They get paid to pay the staff, to pay for overheads. To pay for literature. They CAN'T do it for nothing, what will pay the bills?

Agree with spoons and wilson.

Being forced into having councelling when you are not ready / do not want it can be damaging.

Being forced into councelling with a person of a pro-life bent could cause immense damage.

Has anyone considered that angle? The angle that women and girls might be harmed by having to undergo this process - physically because of teh enforced delay and emotionally and mentally by what they might be told?

thanks for the link and starting this thread.

i've used the link to email my MP, i'll be very surprised if i get any reply at all from her

This thread has really revived my hope in humanity! Well female humanity anyway. I don't think I've ever seen an abortion thread that has been so unified and reasonable. Even the pro-life posters have been listened to respectfully and debated with without being flamed. And the overwhelming view is of anger and disgust. We need to be so watchful and aware of our rights being chipped away at, and look to certain states of the US to see what happens when religious wingnuts get involved in legislation around women's rights.

Daily Mash - Nadine Dorries

that's brilliant Woolly!

Signed petition and emailled MP.

Done. Cannot abide this pro-life chipping away at abortion laws.

Daily Mash hits the nail on the head - Dorries 'gatekeeper at the uterus of every woman in Britain'.