On woman's hour - woman seeking abortion should receive counselling from GP rather than BPAS

[Bumperlicioso]

Was listening to WH earlier and they were discussing this. Details from the bbc website below:

, Abortion Law, New Attempts to Tighten Rules Around Terminations

Nadine Dorries MP and Frank Field MP have put forward amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill currently passing through the Commons that would mean a tightening up of the rules around abortion. They claim that the current system means pregnant women receive advice from organisations such as British Pregnancy Advisory Service, who are ?abortion providers with a vested interest?, consequently they say, they cannot give the independent advice that women should get. So are women not receiving enough independent advice? Ann Furedi, Chief Executive of BPAS and Nadine Dorries join Jane Garvey to discuss'

Am I being naive to think this is just another hoop for women to jump through and surely no one really has a 'vested interest' in convincing woman to have abortions. Are GPs really qualified to give this advice? That is what Dorries seemed to be suggesting should happen.

I think that if the GP handled care throughout pregnancy, regardless of outcome, women would be happier with whatever path they chose.

As they'd have someone invested in them for the duration, rather than the foetus (if they choose to continue the pregnancy) or the medical procedure (if they chose abortion). I think the needs/feelings of the woman aren't really considered that much by either group - midwives and surgeons don't tend to see the individual IMO, and it's esay to feel like you're just an incubator to one and a slab of meat to the other.

Whereas your GP is the one who's dealt with your general health before the pregnancy and will be the one who will help you deal with any physical/mental health issues after it

Four posts. Finished now

Counselling delays termination - I feel strongly that termination should take place as soon as possible on the basis of the woman's decision. It should be available if she chooses but this just puts another barrier in the way for most people who have already made up their minds.

An initial appointment at BPAS costs around £50. In some instances that £50 would be better spent on an impartial counselling session. But that is not given as an option and for some women, like Cinnabar, what they expect from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service is impartial advice. But that's not what they do.

I'm not critical of BPAS and the valuable service they provide but I do think it's too hard to access impartial counselling and there should be GP referral and self-referral to any such service.

Narky you raise a good point about there not being enough mh services to go round but for termination a one-off session would probably be sufficient and the potential cost saving of having the service is worth investigating (eg avoiding the cost of treating women who regret decisions, reducing instances and therefore cost of maternity related depression) so I suspect they are not quite one and the same - although I don't know as much about mh services than maternity services.

Tondelayo I think most people on the thread, if not all, have said counselling should be optional.

There have been times in my life where a termination would have been my choice for an unplanned pregnancy. At other times I would have wanted the opportunity to talk it through with someone impartial. I think women should have the choice.

I read Bumperlicio's link and am absolutely appalled by it. What this (the heartbeat bill) does is to practically make abortion illegal in many circumstances. Because unless a woman is regular, takes a test the day as soon as she's late and can access an abortion provider in usually less than two weeks she will not be able to abort. A woman who has irregular periods leading to uncertainty of dates, or who chooses to wait a few days in case it's just late will find their options severely curtailed. And what about those women like Cinnabarred who needed that extra time to think and decide that they wanted to keep the baby? By giving women a stark choice of "abort now or never" as soon as they get pregnant, some women who are not completely sure may go for the abortion in case they realise in a week or so they want a termination but can't have one.

Of course it should be optional. The problem is there is a genuine issue about a lack of counselling offered to women considering abortion, then there are individuals like Nadine Dorrie who don't give a flying fuck about anything but making it harder to get an abortion.

I am pro choice and if someone wants an abortion they should get one ASAP without having to jump through any hoops. I think that the polarising nature of the issue means that some women fall through the gaps. There are some women who aren't sure what they want to do, and they don't need to be forced to look at the ultrasound, but they also don't need someone just handing them a date for the procedure.

I pity all the women who have GPs like mine then who gave me a 30 minute lecture on how irresponsible I was, how abortion is a sin, I was unnatural for not wanting to carry on with the pregnancy and how he wasn't going to refer me for an NHS abortion because I was a silly girl (with 3 degreed and in her 30s ) and would have to live with the consequences.

donnie
"is everyone who does not support abortions a 'loon' then?"

I think women should have control of their bodies. Until 24 weeks foetus is a lump of cells as far as I am concerned. I do not need anybody to thrust their religious dogma on me.

On the OP topic, GPs are often terrible at both counselling or anything pregnancy related, so I am not sure the reasons behind choosing specifically GPs. I will listen to the programme.

bullet234 I agree with you.

I think it will lead to MORE babies being aborted at early stages (even those who would have been carried to full term, if the future parent/s were given a chance to adjust to the changed circumstances. I do not believe that LESS or significantly less babies will be aborted at later stages. This is not a hi-tech op and many will be done in backstreet "clinics" I am afraid...

^^ Isn't that just the case in US? I don't think we'd ever allow that to happen in the UK.

Sorry Katie - hadn't read whole thread as I was posting and running but I was strongly disagreeing with Dorries and Field - not the other posters. I don't have an issue with abortion but think that once the decision is made it should be done quickly to reduce late terminations.

It is Katie. I was very slow posting to the original messages, sorry.

I don't think GPs should do the counselling. I think that it would be a huge waste of money to have them do it and they wouldn't be the right choice.

I agree puffin. If anyone, professional counselors should do the conselling if anyone. GPs are terrible (as a group, no the rare gems!) and would do more harm than good from my experience. Plus having a number of GP friends I am not sure they would want to themselves.

Don't apologize ladies. I think we're all on the same side

Yes, Dorries is a nutjob - but I also think it's very difficult to counsel women who approach a counsellor saying 'I'm pregnant and need advice' without implying that what they probably want is a termination. I mean, if you are pregnant and happy about it you don't go to BPAS.

I used to do this kind of counselling myself, and it is honestly hard not to push it towards the conclusion you guess they are trying to reach. I was also btw only 20 myself at this stage. I think too that families and partners can press people towards a decision in favour of a termination, and don't even get me started on education institutions and employers. So with all this maybe it would be good to have some sane counterweights?

A friend of mine had an abortion aged 18. She had a first appt at the hospital which she thought was the date of the abortion but turned out to be a counselling appt with the doctor - checking that she knew what she was deciding and making sure that she really wanted to go through with it, having had the pros and cons and the procedure explained to her. That was all NHS but 25 years ago - perhaps things have changed now? :( if they have - I would have thought that counselling session would be imperative. The actual termination date was a week later, so there wasn't really much delay.

sieglinde how much training did you have? All the counsellors I know have MSc qualifications so unless you were very advanced I don't see how you could be qualified at 20 to offer counselling.

I wasn't remotely qualified. A weekend training course; that was it. This was a while ago....

If GPs are going to provide counselling for abortion they will need to have training, surely.

that is horrifying. It must have been a huge responsibility for you.