Today's BMA motion on pregnancy options counselling

Today, at the Annual Representative Meeting of the BMA, members voted in favour of the following motion:

“That this Meeting:-

i) supports the universal availability of neutral counselling for women considering abortion;

ii) believes that any counselling provided for women considering abortion should accord with NHS

standards;

iii) believes that women considering abortion should be able to access counselling that is

independent of the abortion provider;

iv) deplores picketing and intimidation around abortion services.”

As the Telegraphreports:

“The option of counselling should be available for all women, and not mandatory as some politicians have called for, the British Medical Association annual representatives meeting heard.”

We’re glad to hear that doctors are supportive of neutral counselling for pregnant women which accords with NHS standards. We’re also pleased to see that there is no attempt to make counselling mandatory - not every woman wants or needs additional counselling when making her decision about a pregnancy and forcing women to access this service could simply provide unnecessary delay.

It’s also positive that the motion does not recommend stripping abortion providers of their role in counselling, as has previously been suggested by Nadine Dorries. Should they wish, women are of course currently able to access counselling independent of the NHS. However, this counselling will not be regulated in the same way as that taking place at official Pregnancy Advice Bureaux registered with the Department of Health. Our own research has shown that a number of independent centres offering pregnancy options counselling have given biased or inaccurate information and we therefore remain cautious about any attempts to dissuade women from accessing registered, trusted services. 

What is excellent to see is that the motion condemns the picketing and intimidation that has been taking place outside abortion clinics across the country. We know that women who feel comfortable about having made their own, informed decision about a pregnancy are those who have the best outcomes following either a choice to end or continue the pregnancy. It’s heartening that the BMA members acknowledge the detrimental effect harassment of pregnant women can have on their wellbeing and autonomy and how important it is that any counselling given is impartial and non-directive.

This reflects the GMC's guidance on personal beliefs and medical practice, which advises doctors that:

 "Patients have a right to information about their condition and the options available to them. You must not withhold information about the existence of a procedure or treatment because carrying it out or giving advice about it conflicts with your religious or moral beliefs."

 

Mythbusting abortion and breast cancer link. Again.

Another day, another article linking abortion to breast cancer.

In the Catholic Herald today Francis Phillips states her reluctance to share fundraising emails for breast cancer charities with her friends due to their refusal to mention the ‘proved link between induced abortion and breast cancer.’ She claims that ‘the sadly high rates of breast cancer would drop significantly – if there were fewer induced abortions’.

Phillips wishes that cancer charities (and presumably medical professionals) would make women aware of this so called danger:
‘I wonder how many of the millions of young, confused and frightened women who every year seek advice on their pregnancies come away unaware of the medical dangers of abortion – dangers that may come back to haunt them in later life’.

So what’s going on? Why aren’t breast cancer charities warning women to stop having abortions? Why aren’t doctors informing women of the increased risk of cancer following abortion?

Well, because the evidence (and here we mean the robust, peer-reviewed, reliable scientific evidence) does not support such a link. Here are a few UK sources:

'There is no reliable scientific evidence to suggest that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer.' Breakthrough Breast Cancer

'A study coordinated by Cancer Research UK scientists and published in The Lancet has shown that pregnancies that end in miscarriage or abortion do not increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer later in life... Professor Valerie Beral, Director of the Cancer Research UK's Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford, says: "This review of the worldwide evidence has shown that pregnancies that end in an abortion do not increase a woman's chances of developing breast cancer later in life."  Cancer Research UK

'Women should be informed that induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk.' Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

So why does this myth continue to surface? We’ve seen the link being made in school presentations developed by anti-abortion groups, but also in various newspapers. Google ‘breast cancer abortion’ and you get a big confusing mess of links to various scientific studies, anti-abortion sites and pro-choice blogs.

Breakthrough Breast Cancer has produced a leaflet on pregnancy and cancer which helps explain some of the confusion:

'Over the long term, having a baby reduces the risk of developing breast cancer and women who have their first child at a younger age have a greater reduction in their risk. For example, a woman who has her first child before the age of 20 has a lower risk of breast cancer than a woman who has her first child after 30 or a woman who has not had children at all.

The risk of breast cancer also slightly decreases the more children a woman has and the earlier she has them. In the short term, research studies suggest that a woman’s risk of breast cancer increases for a short time after giving birth. However, it is important to remember that breast cancer during the childbearing years is rare.'

So. The research suggests that carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth (especially at a young age, or more than once) has a slightly 'protective' quality with regards to breast cancer. However,  a pretty big leap is being made when people flip this to suggest that abortion causes breast cancer. You don’t need to be Ben Goldacre to see that that’s just bad science.

Standing up for young people's reproductive rights!

Today is the International Day of Action for Women's Health and to mark this, the Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights issued this call to action:

“Full Recognition of Young People’s Sexual and Reproductive Rights! Recognise Reproductive Rights! Mobilise for Reproductive Justice!”

This means:

• The right of young people to decide on all matters related to their sexuality
• Access to sexual and reproductive health services, including safe abortion where legal, that respect confidentiality and do not discriminate
• The right of youth to comprehensive sexuality education
• Protection and promotion of young people’s right to control their sexuality free from violence, discrimination, and coercion 

Have a look at the full report here. 

We thought we'd let an actual young person tell you why they support this call to action. Here's what Jacob, friend of EFC and founder of S4SRE (Students for Sex and Relationships Education) had to say:


"These issues are important to me because a world of people more comfortable with their sexualities is a place I want to be. I think we need to invite young people to ask directly what sort of help they'd like from sex education, and to be more trusted as the major source of support we are for each other... these questions need not be some sort of public spectacle, like TV 'health entertainment' shows. Access to the services and resources that make sure sex can be safe and supportive is another factor that means youth sexuality stops being a punishable reality, and instead a healthier part of growing up."

Well said Jacob!
If you're a young person with an interest in these issues you might want to submit an essay or opinion piece to the Reproductive Health Matters journal which is currently looking for submissions on 'Young people, sex and relationships'.

 

Pro Choice Meeting

Thanks to Abortion Rights for organising last night’s Pro Choice Meeting in Parliament. Speakers included Diane Abbott MP, Emily Thornberry MP, the Guardian’s Zoe Williams and Richy Thompson from the British Humanist Association. You can catch up on some of the tweets using #prochoicemeet.

We were glad to attend such a positive meeting of pro-choice minds. The speakers were clearly well-informed about the current attacks on reproductive rights and spoke eloquently about how we should be coming together to defend abortion rights and make the pro-choice majority voice heard.

Diane Abbott began by identifying recent anti-abortion attacks not as random events but as an orchestrated ‘pushback by the political right and their allies in the media on a woman’s right to choose’. She saw increased ‘kerbside vigils’ and the so-called ‘witchhunt’ against abortion providers as evidence of an anti-choice movement which is borrowing tactics from the States. We were reminded to stay vigilant and ready to counter-act such actions.

Green party MP Natalie Bennett later spoke convincingly about the need for pro-choice activists in the UK to be ‘on the offensive, not the defensive’ stating that we need not just to defend our reproductive rights but to improve them. She reminded the audience of the Greens’ commitment to modernising abortion law and the importance of pro-actively arguing for progressive change to improve access to abortion services.

Kat Banyard of UK Feminista and journalist Zoe Williams were inspiring in their calls to action for anyone who supports the right to choose. Williams encouraged the audience to celebrate the rights we have, to be proud of what has already been achieved and to be optimistic about the future (comparing anti-choice protestors to the Westboro Baptist Church lot – an extreme minority!)

She also made the very important point that we need to stop seeing women seeking abortions as necessarily ‘vulnerable’. Earlier, in her speech, Labour MP Emily Thornberry trotted out the ill-advised ‘every abortion is a tragedy’ line. Quite rightly, Williams pointed out that in fact women (who engage in penetrative sex with men) are very likely to have at least one unplanned pregnancy in their lifetime. They may choose to continue these pregnancies and have children, or they may choose not to. They may have a planned pregnancy which they later terminate due to unforeseen circumstances (such as fetal abnormality or threats to their own health). Certainly, for some women an abortion will represent a traumatic time in their life, but for many others it is a rational, straight-forward decision which can provide relief.

In the interests of shifting the current discourse away from anti-choice rhetoric which paints women as naive and vulnerable ‘victims’ of abortion it’s crucial that we as pro-choice activists do not fall into using language which reinforces this idea. Recent research from the U.S shows that 87% of the women accessing abortion felt highly confident about their decision before having counselling. We need to make space for a range of different experiences. We need to trust women.


Two wonderful blogs on the language we use when talking about abortion, and particularly why calling for abortion to be 'safe, legal and rare' is problematic:
'I Love Abortion: Implying otherwise accomplishes nothing for women's rights' 
'What is so bad about thinking abortion should be rare?'

It's women's lives stoopid

Many people will be whooping at delight that Melinda Gates is defying the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to promote and fund provision of contraception to women around the world. I’m whooping myself because we all know that women of all faiths and cultures want access to modern contraceptive methods and there is currently a massive global unmet need for them. It’s great that she has presented her view on this as one of social justice and interesting that she has linked this to the ethos of her convent education. We know that nuns are not always uncritical mouthpieces for the Vatican. In fact US Bishops have recently been ordered by the Vatican to whip their nuns into line for focussing on ‘radical feminist themes’. Historically, there is even evidence of nuns providing women with safe abortion. It’s a shame that Gates’ teachers never taught her this bit too.


Because the thing that is significantly missing from Gates’ pronouncements on contraception is a recognition that abortion too is a matter of women’s health and of social justice? While Gates hopes to generate $4bn to fund family planning services, no money is going to go towards provision of safe abortion or advocating for governments to reform restrictive abortion laws. For Gates, abortion is a step too far morally. Maybe she hopes that with good contraceptive coverage this problem will disappear, but we all know this is wishful thinking. Maybe she thinks that if she doesn’t mention abortion she can hold back the rage of the Catholic establishment –even win them round. Both of these are wishful thinking too. 


By ignoring abortion or presenting it as morally distinct from contraception - as she does - it reinforces a separation that serves women badly. It undermines the efforts of those who are trying to reform restrictive laws in their own countries, it marginalises those who do provide abortions, and maintains the invisibility of the ordinary women who have abortions each year (44 million in 2008).  It even risks limiting contraceptive options for women, as the anti-choice lobby draws our energy into debates about which drugs are abortifacient as opposed to contraceptive. We know that women everywhere have abortions - whether they are poor women in rural areas with no access to contraception, or middle class women in Europe whose contraception has failed. Catholic women are no more immune to the dilemma of an unintended pregnancy than any other women. Like all women when they know that they simply cannot continue a particular pregnancy, they will defy their religious leaders and the law of the land. They will risk excommunication, prison, and even their lives to get the abortion they have decided is the right thing for them. For some reason these women, their bodies and their lives are not a legitimate focus of social justice.


The same ear-covering ‘la la la la la I can’t hear you’ attitude is often on display in the maternal health field. Despite that fact that 13% of maternal deaths are due to unsafe abortion – a higher proportion in some regions – many in the maternal health field don't address this cause. Despite many of the women dying from pregnancies they would rather have ended, some funders and policy makers in maternal health field avert their eyes. Even as doctors pick up the pieces of unsafe abortions around the world and families bury their dead, abortion remains, at best, peripheral to the maternal health agenda.


It is only when we join up all the dots, that we will really start to improve and save women's lives. That means advocating for, and funding, comprehensive and accurate sexual health education for all young people; access to the full range of modern contraceptive methods and sexual health services for all; safe, legal and accessible abortion as a necessary safety net when things go wrong; and comprehensive ante-natal, maternity, emergency obstetric and post-partum care. Separating these things out or picking and choosing which to address to accommodate the personal morality or preferences of law makers and funders, or hoping that doing so will minimise the opposition will mean that women continue to die wholly preventable deaths.


So please funders, don’t leave out abortion  - it’s women’s lives stoopid.

Our bodies, our choice

Today we're posting a guest blog which was emailed to us by someone who has had an abortion and wanted to share her experience. We're really happy to post guest blogs so please do contact us if you're interested in writing something.

Question - are you pregnant? Yes? Proceed to next question. Question - do you have the want / need  / maturity / emotional stability / finances / time / unconditional love / appropriate, committed and willing partner to be a parent RIGHT NOW?

My answer to every part of the latter question was 'no'. Try if you will for just a second to imagine a baby being brought into the world minus some, a few, or even all of the above conditions. It's not exactly a peachy looking outcome is it?

'Maybe it would bring you both closer together? Maybe you could just make it work?' Ask any therapist, counsellor or teacher what it's like to deal with a child who wasn't wanted when they were brought into the world and raised under 'we never wanted you' conditions. 

For me, the right to choose the future of one's body and emotional stability really should be an open and shut case. I can vote and by doing so make choices concerning the running of the country. I can work and spend my money on absolutely anything I should desire. I can run for parliament. Cripes, I can even tattoo my entire body from head to toe if I want, go blonde, get a boob job and clitoral piercing then maybe change my nose to a better one. It's my body, and my choice, right?

Yet with recent events we've all been privy to, it would appear the choice I made a few years ago when I decided to terminate a pregnancy was a choice many people are working VERY hard to have removed from women. Take for example Andrew Lansley's large-scale pressure to scrutinise abortion providers.  Or Nadine Dorries' attempted amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill. Not to mention the constant threat and harassment provided by anti-abortion vigils camped outside abortion providers. And it's the 21st Century in case you'd forgotten.

Forgive my last sardonic sentence. Yet I can only talk from my perspective. And, as a happy and contented 30 year old woman, perhaps only just now approaching the kind of emotional maturity (if you're shocked by this, wise up - not every woman is born an 'Earth Mother' insistent on giving birth at age 'puberty') required to raise an entire human being for an extremely large section of my life, I'd urge anyone to find a reason as to why I should have done things any differently. FYI I've checked with my parents; they haven't mourned any hypothetical grandchildren just yet.

I use the term 'child' above. I don't wish to get too scientific and technical here, but let's just double check the termination terminology.  A child is a toddler or older. A child is older than a baby. A baby is only a 'baby' after it has left its mother's body during birth. Prior to birth it is a fetus from 8 to 40 weeks gestation. Prior to that, it is an embryo. A group of cells gestating inside a woman's body.

I didn't kill a child. There wasn't a fully grown toddler with a voice and a preference on colour, breakfast cereal, smell, TV channel, inside my uterus. I terminated a pregnancy. It was a yes / no situation and I chose 'no'. And in doing so, I also terminated a situation which had the potential to be extremely adverse for not just me, but indeed many people around me.

If you're going to talk about saving lives, this choice probably saved a fair few from unfavourable conditions; my (now ex) partner's, my parents', my work colleagues, my friends, and - call me selfish if you must - mine. These are all the people who would have had to have dealt with me and my unwanted pregnancy, day in, day out. Refer back to paragraph 3 for notes on the professionals who deal with unwanted babies. They also deal with families of unwanted babies in their droves, too.

I've suffered no physical nor emotional repercussions as a result of my choice. I wake up every day a happy camper. I don't shudder with shame, fear or guilt at the sight of baby clothing. I can handle Christmas thank you very much, and I am very comfortable in the knowledge I made an informed choice on a medical matter. I didn't need nor want to be counselled because for me there was nothing to explore.

I wanted to keep this simple, as goodness knows - to me - it really is a simple matter. A woman's body is entirely that; a woman's. Not a man's. Not a counsellor's. Not any religion's or state's. Our bodies, our choice. Trust women and stop harassing us.

EFC Youth Advisors produce short film about pregnancy testing

We're very pleased to announce that the short film produced by our lovely Youth Advisory Group is now up on our You Tube channel (and you can view it below!)

The group wanted to make a film which would give other young people information about pregnancy testing and pregnancy options but which would also make the process seem a little less intimidating.

Chau: 'I have definitely learned more about sexual health and am able to tell others more precise facts'
Namratha: 'It's a great resource for young people to know of their concerns and options locally available to them'
Nataliah: '(the film allows) young people to gain information on services available to them without feeling embarrassed or intimidated to directly ask someone.'

Well done guys!