Women need saving from counselling, not abortions

Friday September 23, 2011

The recent attempt to amend the Health and Social Care Bill was a poor proxy for real debate on abortion, says Jason Smith

MPs Nadine Dorries’ and Frank Field’s defeated amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill is an example of how a non-issue can take on a life of its own.

Throughout society abortion is not a big issue. While there may be an uneasiness over it, a recognition that having an abortion is not ideal, there is also an acceptance that abortions need to be available to women who need them, and that the moral issues involved in taking the decision are theirs.

We have thankfully moved on from the time when two doctors had to declare a woman insane in order for her to have the medical procedure she needed. Instead, today the controversy is about who gives the women counselling.

Dorries and Field were clearly trying to make it more difficult for women to have abortions. But whereas in the past such attempts would have been based on arguments that focused on moral objections, today the discussion is over who you talk to about it beforehand.

It is an indication of the role that therapeutic intervention into people’s personal lives now plays that any moral or religious objections people have to abortion are sidelined in favour of a technical discussion that avoids making judgements. Attacking abortion providers for having a vested interest, saying they should not be able to organise the pre-abortion counselling themselves, is a cowardly avoidance of putting forward any moral objections they may have.

It is also an indicator of the role that modern MPs see as theirs. Dorries and Field clearly think they know better than the 55,000 women who go to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas) for an abortion each year. They also must think they know better than the rest of us as they have not attempted to start a national debate about the ethics of abortion. Rather than put forward their own arguments for why they see abortion as a problem, and to try and convince us they are right, they try to make it harder for Bpas to do its job.

Field particularly has a track record of interference. Now he turns his attention to making the lives of women more difficult, at a time when they are already examining their own consciences over an issue, which for many, is fraught with contradictory emotions.

If Dorries and Field want to encourage a national debate about the morality of abortion, or even about the current arrangements for getting one, then why not start one? Discussing and debating an issue, to see what everyone thinks, and either coming to a consensus or a definitive conclusion is how society progresses. Instead these two MPs demand more intervention into the private decision-making of women seeking this service.

As it happens there is an important ‘head-to-head’ debate taking place as part of this year’s Battle of Ideas Festival where Ann Furedi, Head of Bpas, and William Saletan, author of ‘Bearing Right: how conservatives won the abortion war’ will discuss the real issues that women face daily. I extend an open invitation to Dorries and Field. I also hope some Free Society readers might like to come along.

Jason Smith is a member of the Battle of Ideas organising committee