Damned if you do. . .

. . . damned if you don't.

On the one hand, late-term abortions!11!!!!! SHRIEEEEK!!!

On the other, early abortions!!!1!!! SHRIEEEK!!!

From the UK:

“Abortion has become a factory-efficient process that denies women the right to independent, professional counselling,” argues Mrs Dorries. “Many women who are given the opportunity to talk through their situation in a calm environment cease to panic and begin to consider other options. It is every woman’s right to be given the choice of access to professional help at the time of a crisis pregnancy.

We remember Nadine Dorries, don't we? She who is somewhat truth-challenged?

So, it's the same old schtick. Organizations providing abortion services coerce women into having them for filthy lucre. Dorries is proposing an amendment that would 'allow' women to seek lying liars' independent counselling.

Except, of course, that that is totally unnecessary, not to mention patronizing.

BPAS [British Pregnancy Advisory Service] point out that theirs is a charity, makes no profit but simply believes it offers women the best service, and wishes women to use BPAS rather than go elsewhere.

It points out that 15 per cent – about one in seven – of women who come to them decide not to go ahead with a termination. Evidence, it says, that its counselling and advice-giving is patently independent. After all, women booking an appointment with an abortion clinic are doing so because – by definition – they have mistakenly got pregnant and now wish to abort.

Its chief executive, Ann Furedi, is angered by the attack launched by Mrs Dorries – Mrs Furedi has threatened libel action against Mrs Dorries over some of her comments – and by the support she appears to have from health ministers.

“Counselling and advice is integral to what we do,” says Mrs Furedi. “If we cannot provide advice, counselling and information then you cannot properly consent somebody for treatment. If we cannot provide women with information about the treatment they are about to have… that would be stupid.

“They [our staff] are not salesmen. They are doctors who want to make sure people are making the right decision for them. The last thing anybody who works for BPAS wants is somebody to regret the decision they have made. We have no vested interest in somebody ending a pregnancy.”

Abortion charities claim that encouraging women to seek out independent counsellors will simply force abortions to take place later in the pregnancy, making the medical procedure more difficult and more stressful for the woman. The amendment’s supporters say that with a proper, independent counselling service in place there would be no need for a delay.

I can't find out much about the probably astroturf organization behind the proposed amendment, Right to Know.

But a sharp-eyed science blogger found a tell.

But what caught my eye was a claim on the Right to Know website that “women who have an abortion are 30 per cent more likely to develop mental health problems”.

Ah, yes, the old 'abortion = insanity' claim that we sane people have to debunk over and fucking over again.

One would have thought this was clear enough:

Abortion trauma syndrome is a fabricated mental disorder conceived by anti-abortion activists to advance their cause and is not a scientifically based psychiatric disorder.

The UK science blogger links to two more mega-analyses. One by the Harvard Review of Pscyhiatry and another by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Keep up the lies, fetus fetishists. We'll keep providing the facty-sciencey stuff.

But lord we get bored.




UPDATE

The government has caved in to calls from anti-abortionists to overhaul existing protocols and strip charities of their responsibility to counsel women seeking to terminate a pregnancy.

The Department of Health confirmed that it would change the rules to ensure abortion counselling was offered "independently" of clinics that conduct terminations. Its announcement was made in advance of an attempt next week led by the Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries to amend the health and social care bill to force such a requirement.

And that astroturf group?

Dorries said she did not know how the Right to Know campaign was being funded, claiming that it represented "hundreds" of people and was run by a lobbyist. She would not reveal the lobbyist's name, or the other organisations the lobbyist represents but did say that she was receiving advice from Dr Peter Saunders, the head of the Christian Medical Fellowship.