30.08.11
Abortion counselling faces reform
The Government is planning to amend the existing protocols concerning counselling for women seeking abortion to ensure they get ‘independent’ advice.
Charities and medics currently providing the terminations have exclusive responsibility for counselling, and the Department of Health has acted on calls for independent counselling to be made available, according to the Guardian newspaper.
Conservative MP Nadine Dorries is campaigning for the change, claiming that charities providing the service have a financial conflict of interest in advising women, and is attempting to amend the Health & Social Care Bill to force the change. Dorries wants the support and information ahead of abortion to be improved, with the aim of reducing the number of terminations by 60,000 per year.
Charities have maintained that they offer continuous counselling to women seeking abortion, and there is no evidence that that there is any bias involved. They are also concerned that the new counselling role could be taken up to organisations which are ideologically opposed to abortion.
Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said: “The thing I find most frustrating about this discussion is the assumption behind it that we want to encourage women towards the abortion option, rather than the option of continuing the pregnancy.
“Nothing could be further from the truth. I can say with hands on heart that the last thing that anyone involved in abortion wants is for a woman to be having treatment that they are not sure about. Everybody wants people to walk away feeling that the right thing has been done.”
The Health & Social Care Bill is due to be debated in the Commons next week, and a decision on whether to select the amendment will be taken on 6 September.
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