Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from 2011

Misguided Changes to Abortion Advice Services

I am strongly in favour of maintaining legalized abortions in the UK. There is no doubt in my mind that Government plans to change abortion advice services are the result of lobbying from anti-abortion campaigners. I suspect this stems from the first TV ads by Marie Stopes last year, which received over 1000 complaints to the advertising watchdog. All of the complaints were rejected. It is completely wrongheaded to imagine that women seek abortion advice because of moral ambiguity. What they want and need is medical information about the procedure and risks, and unbiased counselling about the personal benefits and alternatives. What they do not need is religious doctrine dressed up as personal advice. If I want to know the psychological risks of amputation, then the first person I would ask would be the surgeon and the last person would be the priest. (For that matter the psychiatrist would be pretty far down the list as well.) Nobody is in any doubt about what happens to a foetus