BPAS Chief Executive Ann Furedi
The Guardian recently reported that the people over at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) are a bit anxious. You wouldn’t know it by their name, but they are the leading provider of abortions in the U.K. They’re afraid that the new wave of anti-abortion laws and protests will frighten young doctors away from becoming abortionists, and especially late-term abortionists. They blame the laws and protests on the politicization of abortion and, according to The Guardian, the real threat – the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
After The Daily Telegraph revealed that abortionists were breaking the law by aborting babies on grounds of sex, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley had the CQC do surprise inspections of 250 abortion clinics in England. He wanted to ensure that the clinics were obeying laws and therefore providing quality care to their patients. But they weren’t, and now abortion providers like BPAS and Marie Stopes, another abortion provider, are angry and concerned.
According to The Guardian, the CQC reported that abortionists were pre-signing authorization forms for abortions for women who had yet to request an abortion or even schedule an appointment. Law requires the abortionists to read a patient’s record and know why she wants an abortion before authorizing one. The CQC discovered that one in five of the clinics was ignoring that law.
Dr. Kate Guthrie, clinical director with Hull and East Riding Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare Partnership, had this to say to The Guardian regarding the surprise inspections:
Anyone thinking of becoming involved in abortion will be aware of the recent, very intense scrutiny of services, and I hope will not be put off by uncertainty in interpretation of the law and the thought of Care Quality Commission swoops.
Abortionists in Britain are worried that the fear of inspections will stop up-and-coming doctors from becoming abortionists because surprise inspections project a negative image of their services. They are less concerned with following the laws and providing quality care to women than they are with keeping the truth about their business a secret so that future doctors can enter the abortion world feeling confident about their ability to break the law without consequence.
But that’s not all they are afraid of. They’re fearful that even if a young doctor becomes an abortionist, he or she will stick to early abortions because of the stigma that comes along with providing late-term abortions to those women they claim are the most helpless. Professor Wendy Savage, Britain’s first female consultant gynecologist, told The Guardian:
Our experience is that women who do come for late terminations are often among the most vulnerable, whose lives and domestic situations are the most difficult. They included women who have been raped, cases of incest and vulnerable women with difficult relationships that can include violence.
On top of being worried about the exposure of their unlawful, unethical practices, abortionists in Britain are worried that there soon won’t be enough abortionists willing and ready to cause additional harm to abused women by killing their late-term unborn children, rather than help the mothers get out of their current situations and begin new, healthy lives with their children. BPAS doesn’t want doctors who will work to save each life they touch – just those willing to destroy.
