Commentary: Attack on abortion is an insult to women

In an incisive column in the Herald (Scotland), Anne Johnstone writes: ‘Tory MP Nadine Dorries is touchy about being described as pro-life but she sure ain’t pro choice’.

Johnstone continues:

‘She likes to dub herself as favouring real choices for women who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy. The implication is clear: UK women are currently not being offered real choices. Instead, she contends, they are being dragooned into abortions they may regret by what she calls “the multi-million pound abortion industry”.

‘You may recall that it was Ms Dorries who has twice sought to reduce the time limit for abortions. She certainly deserves marks for tenacity because she’s back again with an amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill. This would oblige women with a crisis pregnancy to seek independent counselling via their GP before going to an organisation like the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which carries out more than 50,000 terminations a year.

‘The main purpose of the bill is to create GP consortia in England with powers to commission treatment for patients but this amendment would also apply in Scotland because abortion services remain a matter reserved to Wesminster, to the chagrin of the Scottish Roman Catholic Church.

‘The attack on abortion has been invigorated recently by the arrival of a new breed of pro-lifers, such as Robert Colquhoun, UK representative of the Texas-based, church-backed 40 Days for Life group, who also uses the language of “choice and consent”. Like Ms Dorries he has a track record of misrepresenting the figures and using highly contested assertions as fact. One leaflet claims abortion makes women more susceptible to breast cancer. By stigmatising abortion they polarise and emotionally charge the entire debate.

‘Women in this position face three choices: abortion, adoption or keeping a child they may not want. It is an agonising life-changing decision but it is an insult to the collective intelligence of women to suggest they do not understand the issues....’

Read the full article here:

Attack on abortion is an insult to women, by Anne Johnstone. The Herald, 31 March 2011

Source: http://www.abortionreview.org