LIFE, the UK’s national caring charity, today criticised the response of some MPs to the news that women have had to wait up to 7 weeks for abortion on the NHS.
LIFE spokesperson Michaela Aston said “The reaction to this story is sad as it highlights the ignorance of many with regard to the plight of women in crisis pregnancies.
It is simply untrue that women benefit from having immediate recourse to abortion. Often such requests are made in a state of panic and isolation; this is the experience of many women who access our Caring services. All too often, there seems to have been little or no opportunity for pregnant women to discuss their options with a professional counsellor and this frequently results in rushed decisions being made.
The potentially damaging psychological consequences of abortion were highlighted last November by psychiatrists in a letter to The Times. Such evidence should not be ignored by our parliamentarians. If we wish to offer genuine assistance to those in crisis pregnancy, we must broaden our approach to include support for young and single mothers. Usually, when a mother has a crisis pregnancy, there are other problems in the background, such as family problems or unreliable partners. Simply ending the pregnancy means that such problems are not tackled. We must focus on the circumstances that make pregnancies difficult for some women, rather than simply seeing pregnancy as the problem. This is exactly how LIFE helps women every single day.