Britain is debating reforms backed by the anti-abortion lobby

Maeve McKeown

Today the House of Commons will debate the Health and Social Care Bill. Conservative MP Nadine Dorries and Labour MP Frank Field have lobbied for and won a free vote on an amendment regarding abortion counseling. The amendment has caused a storm of controversy, forcing the government, who initially said they would support it, to back down and remove their support.

The amendment requires that women seeking a termination receive advice or counseling from an independent service. ‘Independent’ is defined as, ‘a private body that does not itself provide for the termination or pregnancies’, or a statutory body.

After some elementary scrutiny it has become apparent that the amendment is illogical. I will bullet point the reasons why (you can read more detailed explanations by following the links), and then analyze the political ramifications of the fiasco. I argue that this time the Conservatives have simply gone too far.

Why the amendment is illogical

• Dorries claims that it is in the interests of abortion providers to encourage women to have abortions because they profit from it. This is simply not true. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and Marie Stopes, the largest abortion providers in the UK, are registered not-for-profit charities. It is true that they are paid around £60million per year to provide abortions; but unless Dorries wants abortions to be carried out for free by volunteers, there is no way around this. The BPAS has stated that, ‘Any small surplus that we make is ploughed back into providing services’. The claim that BPAS and Marie Stopes encourage women to have abortions is also false. There is no evidence for this whatsoever. It misunderstands the nature of counseling, which is about choice not coercion. Marie Stopes have said that around 20-25% of women that come to them for advice decide to continue with the pregnancy. At BPAS that figure was 15.3%.

Source: http://www.opendemocracy.net