Anti-choice pregnancy counselling
Posted by Angie on Sun 17-Sep-2006 at 12:00 pm
Over the years, many anti-abortion ‘pregnancy counselling centres’ have conned women into continuing with unwanted pregnancies. Democrats’ Senator Natasha Stott Despoja wants to make it an offence for individuals or corporations to advertise pregnancy counselling without declaring any anti-choice stance or automatic refusal to refer clients for abortion.
This has sent the National Civic Council’s News Weekly into a frenzy. Stott Despoja and her allies are conducting an ‘obscene modern-day witch-hunt’ as part of ‘a concerted campaign to overturn social conservative values and influence at all levels in the community’:
Senator Stott Despoja’s supporters and purveyors of sympathetic propaganda can be found anywhere from Parliament to the YWCA, all the way to the glossy magazine ‘Marie Claire’, which accuses some pregnancy counselling services of trying to ’shock women into keeping the baby’. (’Pro-life pregnancy counselling in jeopardy’, News Weekly, 16 Sept. 2006)
Marie Claire seems to have it about right. A recent American study revealed that 20 out of 23 such ‘pregnancy resource centres’ contacted by investigators provided false or misleading information to young women seeking advice about putative pregnancies:
Some [centres] falsely claimed there is a link between abortion and breast cancer [see my comment of 2-Jul-2006]. One centre said that ‘all abortion causes an increased risk of breast cancer in later years’, whereas another told the caller that an abortion would ‘affect the milk developing in her breasts’ …
Other centres falsely stated that even early abortions could decrease fertility:
One centre said that damage from abortion could lead to ‘many miscarriages’ or to ‘permanent damage’ so ‘you wouldn’t be able to carry’, telling the caller that this is ‘common’ and happens ‘a lot’.
Some centres said that abortion is harmful to mental health and that the chances of suicide increase dramatically for women who have had abortions. There is no serious evidence for these contentions. (Consumer Health Digest #06-37, 12 Sept. 2006)
The findings of this American study are fully consistent with Australian women’s experience of anti-choice pregnancy counselling centres over a long period of time. Don’t be fooled by these right-to-life fronts.