Panorama investigation into pregnacy advice centres

[ArabellaScott]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64751800

'Women are being misled and manipulated about abortion by some crisis pregnancy advice centres in the UK, according to evidence from a Panorama investigation.

The centres operate outside the NHS and tend to be registered charities.

Most say they don't refer women for abortions, but offer support and counselling for unplanned pregnancies.

But the BBC's investigation reveals more than a third of these services give misleading medical information or unethical advice, and sometimes both'

Programme to be on tonight at 8.30, I think.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001f7wj

That sounds extremely concerning. Counselling on something like this should be agenda-free.

Yes, absolutely. And some of the misinformation was appalling.

I guess counsellors aren't particularly well regulated in general, anyone can set themselves up as one. There should maybe be more public awareness raising about who to talk to about pregnancy choices, and that impartial advice is important.

What kind of misinformation and pressure, do we know? What is the hidden agenda?

There's an article at www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64751800 with more information.

Generally it's information designed to discourage abortion. So broadly two types. Firstly, talking about the "baby" suffering or starving to death during the abortion. Secondly, exaggerated or misleading information on abortion risks.

Absolutely shocking.

FFS

That's appalling.

Having read the article, not all the points raised are indefensible.

Unfortunately some women don't get pregnant again and might well regret the choice they made.
Some women will struggle with the barriers that keeping an abortion secret raises between them and their loved ones.

I guess it's about the way it's done. I'd think you have to be well trained to avoid all the pitfalls that could crop up in these conversations.

Outrageous for anyone to be deliberately emotionally blackmailing or scaremongering a woman, and pretty poor if they are insufficiently trained to communicate clearly.

Yes, this also seems to be a slightly grey area between offering medical advice and 'counselling' or therapeutic or support services.

16 years ago I called quite a few places for support and I absolutely came across some pro life ones, not the opposite at all.
I'd already been to my GP by this point, and was just looking for support really, a kind word.

I've posted about this many times on MN, though I've been here 15 years or so, so different names.
I was treated horribly by the clinic.
I told two people irl, one disowned me.
We made up, though they've both now disowned me for "coming out", as GC.

Well done to Panorama for doing such solid reporting.

Pickles

I'm really sorry to hear that. Perhaps if the NHS itself upped its game wrt support, aftercare, etc, there wouldn't be the need for these clinics.

This happened to me. I wanted help to make a decision only to discover the "independent" place I went to for help was a Catholic centre who told me all sorts of awful things about the process of an abortion, what a terrible person it would make me, and absolutely nothing about any support there could be for me if I kept the pregnancy. I did terminate in the end, but the surgical procedure really did traumatise me and that shower of shit "advisor" definitely contributed to my decade long mental health crisis.

I've just checked and they have at least closed down thank god.

There are no truly ‘independent’ places as far as I am aware.
BPAS etc are not independent because their business is abortion and they won’t help women who want to keep their baby - with support, equipment etc. They also don’t tell the truth about the trauma some women face after abortion.
The advice places don’t offer abortion. However some do signpost to help for women who want to keep their babies. And they are an option for women who want to keep their babies but feel they have no other option other than abortion. They show that their are other choices. I know of women who are happy they went to these centers as they kept the babies.

I will watch the programme with interest.

We deserve better.

The NHS do it too, I had a termination years ago and a nurse dragged me into a room beforehand to show me a scan and make sure I 'really wanted to go ahead with destroying my baby '. Luckily I was able to tell them to go fuck themselves and made sure they were not part of my care after that but others more vulnerable may have been very traumatised by it.

And also carrying out unnecessary scans, too. Horrible!

JFC.

I'm glad you had the strength, JPG.

This has been what pro life supporters have been saying for years.

Yes, I remember such supposedly neutral centres advertising in the 80s when their real agenda was to persuade and guilt women into keeping an unwanted pregnancy. They used to have paper stickers on the back of toilet doors and bus seats. Vile, lying scum the lot of them.

Interesting, this. It makes sense of an experience I had a number of years ago.

I was referred to a baby loss counselling service, and when I got there, the office was grotty and a very unprofessional setup. The first couple of sessions were rubbish and I got the feeling that the woman running my sessions had absolutely no real training or understanding at all.

By the third session, I realised that she had misled me about her own experiences in quite a significant way. She also started talking to me about her religious work and the work she did with young women, and I realised it was an evangelical outfit, designed to prevent terminations. I never went back.

Looking back now, what they had done was wrap their purpose in a baby/child loss/grief counselling wrapper to cover up the fact they were a prolife group whose primary purpose was to dissuade young women from terminations. They'd printed out info leaflets, got them into the right places, and managed to get GPs to refer/pass on their details as a legitimate operation.

God that was a depressing watch.do much crap spouted by the so called professionals.

This shouldn't be like this!

Not a new issue unfortunately.

www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/07/nadine-dorries-abortion-amendment-defeated

This was a serious attempt to stop BPAS and Marie Stopes from offering counselling to drive more women towards anti abortion ‘counselling.’

This is a very recent article about anti abortion ‘counselling’ dominating the sponsored results on Google when people search ‘NHS abortion advice.’

www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/25/google-adverts-direct-pregnant-women-anti-abortion-groups