Education Is The Way To Get Fewer Abortions
Scarlett MccGwire remains unconvinced by Nadine Dorries' plans to reform abortion counselling.
3 Sep 2011, 21:44
Abortion: education is the key
If abortion counsellors employed by an abortion charity are not allowed to counsel women who have opted for a termination with that charity, why are GPs allowed to push parents into having their children vaccinated? Counsellors do not get bonuses for women they ‘persuade’ to have abortions, while GPs are given a financial incentive to raise their vaccination rates. Those parents worried about the effect of vaccinations were not offered independent advice, but reassured. The abortion counsellors I have met were perfectly happy when a woman opted to keep the baby. Unlike GPs there was no pressure to reach a quota. We need to remember that BPAS and Marie Stopes are not businesses, they are charities. Nobody is making a profit.
In fact the amendment was not about protecting vulnerable women, but wanted the result that Nadine Dorries trumpeted – 60,000 fewer abortions. Do we really believe that nearly a third of women who go to an abortion clinic do not want an abortion? Or that the more hoops put in the way of a woman procuring an abortion will make more women give up on the process? And those are the vulnerable women – the teenagers, those with chaotic lifestyles and those who are running out of time.
Bringing down the number of abortions is not achieved by punitive legislation but by tackling the core problem – unwanted pregnancies. Whatever the myths, women do not opt for abortion lightly; those that do are mature enough to understand that they cannot cope with bringing up the baby – for whatever reason.
How do we stop unwanted pregnancies? While abstinence might be the only sure way, it does not work as social policy. Research has shown that those Christian teenagers who signed up to the Silver Ring Thing, promising chastity, still had sex but their profound ignorance of sex combined with guilt made them more likely to get pregnant and contract sexually transmitted diseases.
Ignorance is certainly not bliss. In Britain, with sex education in schools, far too many teenagers believe still that you cannot get pregnant the first time, if you do it standing up or if you wash afterwards. Of course girls should be encouraged to say no instead of being pressured into sex. And boys should not be pressuring them. (And pigs might fly.)
Of course it’s not just teenagers. Good sex is fantastic. Moralising does not work. Contraception might have changed our lives, but is far from failsafe. While we search for ways to bring down the numbers of unwanted pregnancies, the answer is not to make abortion more difficult. That just adds to the misery.
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Scarlett MccGwire
Scarlett MccGwire is a media trainer and communications consultant.
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Comments (3)
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The mother does not have to bring up the unwanted child she can put it up for adoption. Then at least she could say in later life that she at least fulfilled her responsibility to her child to give it a start in life.
She wouldn't even have to go through the pain of child birth, she would be entitled to a caesarean.
Why is it that people are so unwilling to acknowledge that we are not talking about just one person when we discuss abortion?
04/09/2011 00:20@William Cable.
No-one is 'entitled' to surgery. Surgery is undertaken on the basis of need, with the surgeon making the final decision based the risks and benefits of any procedure.
04/09/2011 00:38"If abortion counsellors employed by an abortion charity are not allowed to counsel women who have opted for a termination with that charity, why are GPs allowed to push parents into having their children vaccinated? "
Because in the case of abortions, the counsellors working for organisations that carry out abortions have a vested interest, even if they won't admit it. That the organisations may not have a profit motive is irrelevant. They do have an intellectual motive to promote the availability of abortion though, and for a vulnerable woman who may be being pressured by others to abort a pregnancy they may not hear the alternatives that are available or any moral arguments whatsoever. And until the entire world agrees one way or another, any woman considering such a thing should be allowed to come to a conclusion in full knowledge of what is available to her.
Independence of counselling is not a way of denying abortions to women who actually want them, but it does improve the education for women who are not sure.
Please excuse the analogy, but if you were considering veganism, it wouldn't be a good idea to go to a butcher to ask for his opinion on whether you should or not, since the only thing he sells is meat and it's in his interest to persuade you of one particular course of action.
Likewise, Marie Stopes, BPAS, et al, while they may not have profit motives, do employ people and it is in these people's interests, even if unspoken, to play to their own biases.
Moral aspects apart, where anyone is making a 'will I do this or won't I' decision of this magnitude, the quality of the advice that they receive and the independence of it should be paramount. Marie Stopes, BPAS, etc are in wholly the wrong position to be giving that advice.
05/09/2011 10:30