Termination of Pregnancy (Information Provided)

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Although the abortion figures for last year were slightly reduced by 3.2%, there were still 200,000 abortions carried out in the UK last year—572 per day. Abortion in this country is an industry from which a small number of organisations and individuals make vast amounts of money. No sensible person would condone this. In examining the legislative abortion procedures of European countries with far lower numbers than ours, it occurred to me that for those countries in which informed consent before an abortion takes place is enshrined in law—Germany, France, Belgium, Finland and others—the abortion rate was much lower. I have deliberately excluded countries with religious and cultural influences, such as Italy, Spain and Portugal from that analysis. It also appears to me that in those countries, the abortion procedure is a far kinder one, which takes much more account of the vulnerable position a woman might be in at the time of her request for an abortion and provides her with alternatives to consider and a cooling-down time in order to think, breathe and take stock of what is happening.

All those countries with good informed consent legislation had significantly lower than average daily abortion rates than the countries that do not have such informed consent legislation. Although a causal link is impossible to prove, these figures suggest that informed consent legislation might prove a good way of reducing Britain’s abortion figures. I think that all Members of all parties are agreed that we want to see that happen.

In this country, if a woman requests a termination from her GP, no questions are asked. I have spoken to numerous GPs and posed this question to them: “When a woman sits in your surgery and asks for a termination, what do you say?” The answer I frequently receive is that the GP does not say anything, but writes a referral letter. That is the process at the GP stage. A referral is made to a hospital or clinic and the abortion is performed, for the woman’s sake, as quickly as possible and without fuss.

Minimal counselling or no counselling is provided in some NHS hospitals and some clinics. Minimal counselling is provided by BPAS—the British Pregnancy Advisory Service—which carries out a large number of abortions on behalf of the NHS. However, BPAS carries out some counselling, but also carries out the abortion, so there is a clear conflict of interest there.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I understand that the counselling provided by abortion providers is Government funded only if the abortion goes ahead. Does my hon. Friend share my concern about that?

[Nadine Dorries]

I am going to come to that very point a little later in my speech. It is one of the main concerns, mainly because no alternative counselling is provided to negate that option.

We all know that when it comes to abortion, the law is indeed an ass. It has no application whatever. We know that the law prohibits social termination—two doctors’ signatures are required—but none of that is ever taken into account. Abortion clinics freely admit that consent forms pile up in their offices, waiting for the second signature, long after the event has taken place.

A woman has an assumed right to choose. However, she apparently has no right whatever to any information on which to make that choice. If any of us were referred to a hospital today for a minor procedure such as an operation for an in-growing toenail, the procedure would be explained to us in detail. We would be made aware of the level of pain we might experience; we would be told exactly what would happen while we were under the anaesthetic; we would be given follow-up appointments to check on the progress of our healing; we would have our dressings changed and have checks for infection. A woman who has an abortion has none of that.

At the end of the day, the woman is discharged out on to the street and left to come to terms with the rollercoaster emotional journey of which she will still be in the midst. Before the woman received the procedure, she might have felt coerced, pressurised or bullied into the abortion. To her, it might have been a life or the beginning of a life—depending on her perspective. She might have had a seed of doubt, but once she was on the conveyor belt to the clinic, she might have felt helpless and unable to step off.

Make no mistake: abortion is not a medical procedure. It is not an in-growing toenail. Abortion is about the ending of a life, or a potential life. It is about a death which is final, and from which there is no going back. The abortion of a baby does not abort the seed of doubt or misgivings that may have been present at the time; that still remains.

Many consultant psychiatrists from the Royal College of Psychiatrists are becoming increasingly concerned about the number of women who are presenting with mental health issues directly linked to previous abortions. A major longitudinal 30-year survey published in The British Journal of Psychiatry in 2008 showed clearly—after adjustment for confounding variables—that women who had had abortions had rates of mental disorder 30% higher than women who had not. The Royal College of Psychiatrists said that, following its position statement on abortion and mental health,

“healthcare professionals who assess or refer women who are requesting an abortion should assess for mental health disorder and for risk factors that may be associated with its subsequent development”.

Nothing remotely like that happens. No consideration whatsoever is taken of the state of a mother’s mental health when she asks for an abortion. If she asks for an abortion, she is given one.

Given the disregard that we have for women seeking this procedure, I am surprised that that figure stands at only 30%. We push vulnerable women through a clinical procedure at great speed to end a life—or, as I said, a potential life—that is growing within them, and we wonder why only 30% have problems in later life. Those are the women who are diagnosed. They are the women who seek help, and whom we know about. We do not know about the others. Is it not time that we started to treat women a little better than this?