Greg DalyThe Pro Life Campaign has called for Government plans for the regulation of independent crisis pregnancy support agencies to be consistently applied.
Health Minister Simon Harris has backed a draft law issued by Labour leader Brendan Howlin intended to prevent pregnancy advisers from giving false information to distressed women. If passed, this would be the first time that crisis pregnancy counsellors be registered and regulated.
The proposal follows reports this September that some pro-life counsellors had given women false information to dissuade them from seeking abortions in Britain, with some counsellors suggesting that abortion increased breast cancer risks and that women who had had abortions had been known to neglect their children.
Mr Harris said at the time that he had been “sickened” by what the reports had revealed.
Information
“What we’ve always said is that we support women getting full and accurate information when they are in crisis situations – that goes without saying,” Cora Sherlock of the Pro Life Campaign told The Irish Catholic.
Questioning whether the new proposals would allow for full and accurate information to be given to women, Ms Sherlock noted the stark contrast between the “big furore” that met the September reports with the silence that met reports in 2012 that staff the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) had advised women who had had abortions to tell their doctors they had had miscarriages.
“I think there’s nothing cynical about suggesting that this looks like an attempt to target agencies that are opposed to abortion or who are giving out information that would offer an alternative to women,” she said, pointing out of politicians backing the proposed regulations that, “they’re certainly open to the charge of double standards if they don’t do what should have been done before, which is to ask the IFPA to provide an explanation for what happened in 2012.”
Calling for the IFPA to be transparent to the taxpayer, Ms Sherlock said the agency should explain what was happening in 2012 that “women were given such life endangering advice”.