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#also I used she in this post bc the mental health profession is a female dominated industry
omatone-dnp · 2 years
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Wait you said thats breaching big boundaries but didn’t Harry’s therapist came to his show? Is that a breach?
Hi! I hadn’t heard that Harry’s therapist came to his show. If that’s true though, I have some thoughts on it. Sorry this is about to be a little long but it’s a complicated topic. So as I said, I’m about 2-3 semesters away from graduating and becoming a therapist. Ethics are a little different for every U.S. state since counseling is a state regulated profession and not a federally regulated one. But, pretty much all therapists are taught a couple of things regarding boundaries with clients. 1) if you see them in public, do not say hi unless they say hi first. 2) you cannot be friends with a client, you can not go out with them casually to an event or get drinks with them or refer to them as your friend. 3) you’re not supposed to look clients up on social media. I was taught a few things about going to significant life events for clients and every therapist has a slightly different opinion on this. I know therapists who will go to clients’ weddings or big special events in their life if they are invited because they feel it will help the therapeutic relationship and the client would be strongly offended if they didn’t go. Some therapists won’t go to any special events because they feel it breaches boundaries and they’ll have to explain to all the guests who they are in relation to the client. I think it’s a little different when you have a celebrity client. If the therapist had gone to a client’s show where the client was a non-famous, indie musician and they were performing in a bar with 50 people present, including some of the client’s friends, I would say that’s breaching boundaries for most therapists. Transference can happen if the client starts to feel like the therapist is becoming their friend and going to events like that can make that start to happen. It’s on a case by case basis because in some circumstances, it might be fine for a therapist to go to a client’s small music event like that. But, with celebs it’s a little different. Looking Harry up on social media for his therapist would be different than looking up a “normal” client, as Harry’s social media is mostly run by his team; he’s not putting much of his personal thoughts or daily activities on it. The therapist still could not ethically be friends with Harry, go to outings with him, or befriend anyone in his circle without that being a big ethical breach. But I think attending his concert was a “this could go either way” decision that I’m guessing the therapist made and hopefully she considered all angles!
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lellarps · 2 years
Text
Hello, babes!
Its been a terrible week for us women here in brazil, and i just wanted to share. GIANT TWfor r@pe! and @bort!on. You are invited to unfollow me if you are against reproductive rights BC i don't give a fuck (:
.
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For those who dont know, currently in brazil women are only allowed to safely @bort when they have been violated, or when the fetus is already dead, or when there's risk for the women's life. Which is fucked up. You see, rich women go to other countries and get a legal and safe @borti0ns there. Poor women cant afford it and try to do it here without professions or a safe support. Many of them end up de@d. Others end up in jail (as if our prison system can even hold more people than what it already has?? Like?? Tbh prison system is also fucked up but that's not the point of this post). The thing is... What should be a matter of public health, isnt.
But you know, not even if you have been violated (which is a case that legally we were supposed to be allowed to @bort) your abortion is guaranteed bc of fucked up professionals.. Also, people STILL do not leave you alone for wanting @bort!on in the first place . A ELEVEN years old KID went through it just the other week and happened to end up exposed at the fucking news. She was r@ped! She wanted to end the pregnancy! And then a female, a fucking grown up, who happened to be the judge, had THE NERVE of asking her if she could "stand it for just a little longer, dear?" (The judge wanted a ELEVEN YEARS OLD to GIVE BIRTH. Fjfjf im hysterical, bc im so nervous, honestly
This is so
SO FUCKED UP
Words just cant describe it
As a woman, as a psychologist that has worked with many teens and kids that suffered many types of violence... That has supported emotionally so many of them, It honestly made me cry.
It made me fucking cry.
Im so sad about this. I'm so tired. I've lost people to this kind of bullshit.
And then, another news to wreck things up this week:
A famous young actress of ours was exposed for giving a baby up to adoption.
Correction: She was forced to come forward and "explain" what happened.
The hospital, which was supposed to protect her body, her mental health, her identity, didn't, even psychologically tortured her into keeping the baby (that she wanted to @bort in the first place, that was the whole point of going to a hospital). And thats how the story ended up in the hands of a polemic "journalist" that exposed her. Can you see how fucked up it is?
A woman in her most terrible, vulnerable, moment, when she needed to be protected the most...
And a few dumbasses who don't know how to be HUMAN and PROFESSIONAL about it.
But you know.. I want to highlight this: She was JUDGED by society for her decision.
and thats it?
Society isn't happy if we @bort.
Society isn't happy either if we give babies away to adoption.
This is not about being pro-life, its about controlling female bodies (: its about forcing "motherhood", shit-heads. I'm so sick of this.
Honestly.
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voightsgirl · 7 years
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Your Voight post made me think, and I think CPD doesn't get enough appreciation re: how they seem to effortlessly go against a lot of toxic masculinity. Like, there's been any issues with the guys crying or expressing their love for each other, and it's never made into a joke or followed with a no homo reaction or smthn like that and idk I guess I really appreciate the male friendships in CPD. Even the rest of the franchise doesn't do so well as this imo (not counting justice bc it's still new)
You know I started replying to this and then I realised that I’ve never really thought about the male characters in that much depth…I’m the first to sing about how amazing Erin and Burgess are, as well as male characters individually, but when I really thought about how well the men have been created, I ended up with an entire essay so apologies it’s so long but I just love this show and these guys. Also since there’s been a lot of negativity in light of *cough* recent events, I thought it would be nice to show my appreciation, so here goes. Feel free to add examples/contradictions/points/other ideas etc!!
Something I need to say before beginning: I find it really, really difficult to empathise with male characters. It’s just harder for me to really relate to their issues. And I think a huge reason for this is just that being a female character in these shows and these professions is just harder. And therefore there are a certain amount of fundamental difficulties that each female character has to face, and since being a female in general involves a lot of these struggles, it’s much easier for other women to look at these characters and see themselves in them. Look at Erin and Burgess struggling to keep their hard work and intelligence a more valuable feature to their unit than their bodies. Look at April and Maggie trying not to be undermined by their male, more qualified co-workers - and Manning being a single, working mum. Look at Gabby beating the odds and becoming a firefighter even though no one thinks she can do it because she’s small and female.
And I love that this show can do that: take these vital professions and give them amazing, well developed, multifaceted female characters whose constant struggles are so relatable for any female watching because we’ve all been there.
But what PD does that I just don’t see so much in the others (Fire does it to an extent, but I can’t really think of any examples in Med - although it’s my least favourite and so I’m probably not the best person to make analyses based on it, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) is do the same with the males. And it’s something that I have never seen on a TV show before. There’s no “no-homo” bullshit, there’s no reservations around being friends. They hug each other when they’re worried about them, they do the friendly shoulder squeezes and arm-punches and fist-bumps. They go out for drinks together. They trust each other and look out for each other and they talk to each other about how they feel. And it’s really, really nice to see.
People go the extra mile when writing female characters (although admittedly, as a teenage girl I’m probably not using the widest sample range of TV shows) because they know that either a) their audience is mostly female, or b) they’re worried about sexist accusations. Women have always been victims of horrible media tropes, so I’m so, so glad that they do go this extra mile - I love seeing female friendships more than anything else in the world - but because people are so aware of the issue surrounding female characters, they’ve taken that into consideration, while assuming that there isn’t actually a problem with their male characters.
What Chicago PD does that I think is incredible from a characterisation point of view is they take these archetypal cop characters - the dirty cop (Voight), the by-the-book cop (Antonio), the shell-shocked veteran cop (Halstead), the old-cop young cop (Ruzek and Ollinsky) and the gentle giant (Attwater). **there are more, such as Attwater arguably being the “token minority” and Ruzek being the “fair cop” but you get the idea. They all seem to represent one of the main tropes that are almost always present in cop shows (at least all the ones I’ve watched).
And the show doesn’t subvert the tropes, not exactly - even though doing so would be so much easier - but they three-dimensialise (idk if that’s a word just roll with me here) all the characters on top of these fundamental archetypes. ie:
Voight is a dirty cop. He kills people in the name of justice, he’s used dirty money and lied under oath and done things that probably should have lost him his badge a million times. And yet, he works tirelessly for the protection of his city. He loves his son with everything he has, and his grandson, and his daughter-in-law. He took in a 13(?) year old who’d been hooked on heroin and arrested for solicitation and loves her like she’s his own daughter. He made amends with the guy who put his son in jail. He always, always fights for the underdog and doesn’t let the system take advantage of them. He treats his unit as if they are his “family” - literally his words - and he has formed relationships with every single one of them, bending the rules and putting his neck and badge on the line if they ever do anything wrong or against the rules. (Example: 3x05)
Antonio plays by the rules, that’s just who he is. He believes in the system more than Voight does, arguably because he’s always been on the right side of it. But that doesn’t mean he’s not willing to make compromises if those he really cares about are on the line - he is more than willing to turn a blind eye to other people’s ‘interpretations’ of the law, and he will do everything in his power to fight his way using the rules of the system before he breaks them. (1x02, 3x01)
Halstead’s military history I think is one of the most interesting aspects of this show because he had the potential to turn into a “cold sniper” as I think is the norm with ex-military characters, and yeah, he was affected in ways that we don’t even know - and may never fully understand - by what he saw and did in his tour(s). But he’s so selfless and sweet and supportive. His PTSD and general commitment issues mean that he can’t open up to everyone but he still lets them open up to him, being Erin’s #1 supporter, and he’s finally started to work on looking after his mental health properly and learning how to ask for help. He’s kind and caring and understands the importance of sacrifice and, like Voight, is willing to bend the rules a little bit - even if he’s always there to question Voight’s methods. (3x17, 4x18 - deleted scene)
Ruzek is the token rookie of the show, and the audience is placed in the same boat as him when initially learning the ropes of the unit and how everyone fits. He’s the young and attractive one (I mean….), and he does exhibit those typical rookie traits: he’s rash and reckless and cocky and definitely not as cynical as any of the others, but at the same time he has a huge heart, he’s sweet and caring, and he can be as tough as hell when someone he loves is in danger. He doesn’t have the “tortured romantic” side to him and he has a typical cop family tree, but he’s the person I feel like most people can probably relate to - someone who puts themselves in harm’s way every single day for no reason other than he wants to make a difference. (1x01, 1x11)
Ollinsky is the other dirty cop, although he functions more as an assistant to the dirty cop. He has the tough coldness about him that you would probably expect Jay to have instead, if following these tropes by the book, and he comes across as very sinister and quite scary. And yet he is an absolute darling around Lexi and Michelle and when Lexi died and Meredith was kidnapped, he totally lost control. Despite all the coldness and being closed-off he is perhaps the most emotional of them all, grieving and crying and not caring about how tough he is when someone he loves is threatened. (4x16)
Attwater is the gentle giant of the show and although this doesn’t need much more explaining, he, alongside Erin, is also the token minority of the unit (even more so now that Antonio’s left and Burgess has joined Erin in Intelligence) and although this trope is constantly seen as a bad thing, using a token character to avoid criticism of being racist in casting choices, in PD Attwater opens the door to addressing cases of police racism, corruption and brutality against ethnic minorities, and the episodes in which they do deal with this, Attwater is quick to express his opinion on the matter and challenge within seconds everything that’s wrong with the institution and their society. But on top of all that, he has relatives in prison, he’s expected to be a big tough “scary black man”, but in actuality he looks after his two younger siblings and does stand-up comedy and probably gives the best bear hugs ever.
And the support system that these six men have together (or five, now that Antonio’s left) is incredible to watch. They understand barriers, they know when to push and when to give each other space, they all work together so well in such a potentially toxic environment without even a hint at this hyper-masculinity that is so huge in other cop shows. They’re all just bros.
What’s also great is that even though there’s a lil bit of that bro-masculine culture especially when Erin goes undercover and dresses up all nice, they’re never anything but perfect gentlemen. There’s no teasing and no sexist remarks about her legs or whatever, they all just seem genuinely impressed by how pretty she looks and how well she does her job. Adam even says things like “there’s about a thousand things I could say right now but won’t” because they all respect Erin and Burgess and support them as much as each they do each other. They don’t care if the women do better jobs than them, or save them, or shoot more accurately than them, and they’d never dream of undermining their femininity while doing so.
Other examples of the bros being bros:
Antonio getting Jay into the unit in the first place as a thank you for helping out Gabby (Chicago Fire, season 2 sometime, mentioned later when Antonio leaves)
Voight literally crying on Alvin’s shoulder after Justin’s death
Every single one of Jay and Mouse’s interactions, especially when they talk about their time in the military and Jay realises how much he cares about his friend when Mouse wants to re-enlist and when Mouse is taken hostage (4x05, 3x03)
Antonio and Voight’s entire friendship and the fact that Voight would go to such measures to help Diego even after Antonio was the one to put the cuffs on and send him to jail
Attwater and Ruzek being bros until the end and *sniff* the whole best man thing 
They all buy Antonio a zimmer frame when he gets shot isn’t that just beautiful
Ruzek hugging Al after Lexi’s death and his little “I don’t know what to say” and “can I hug you?” - like he knows Al might just want space but he has to let him know he’s there for him
They all get so upset when Jay is taken. Just watch the scene where they see the video of his torture and their faces break me. They can’t handle the idea that someone so close to them - their brother - is in so much pain. (3x01)
Seriously tho just look at these bros
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So I was just gonna write a few paragraphs and sorry this is so long but feel free to add more!! I want to know what everyone else thinks!
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therightnewsnetwork · 7 years
Text
British Medical Association Votes to Legalize Abortions Up to Birth
On June 27 delegates at the BMA annual representative meeting (ARM) voted to support the decriminalization of abortion. You can listen to the whole debate here and five brilliant two-minute speeches against the motion here.
The opposition speakers spoke with grace, eloquence, and courage but were unable to sway the meeting.
Many people may be surprised to know that abortion is still illegal in Britain. After all, there have been over 8 million abortions in Britain since the Abortion Act came into being 50 years ago in 1967.
Department of Health figures for England and Wales released last month show that there were 190,406 abortions in 2016 and that 98% of these were carried out on mental health grounds. The Abortion Act was intended to be restrictive, allowing abortion only in limited circumstances, but its provisions have been very liberally interpreted by doctors so that now one in every five pregnancies ends in abortion.
So in practice, although abortion is still technically illegal, the law is widely flouted. But, nonetheless, abortion remains illegal under the Offences Against the Person Act (OAPA). The clue as to why this law exists is the name – it’s based on the idea that the baby in the womb is a person who deserves legal protection along with the mother; in other words, that both lives matter. Every abortion stops a human heart beating and that is why abortion has been treated as legally different from any other medical procedure. It takes a human life.
Here are ten observations on the vote to legalize all abortion.
1. This change was brought about by a very small number of doctors. The BMA, Britain’s medical trade union, currently has 156,000 doctors and 19,000 medical students as members. That’s a total of 175,000. Only 500 members, however, attended the annual representative meeting and the five parts of the six-part motion supporting decriminalization [the other part was non-controversial] were backed by fewer than half of these. There were also a significant number of abstentions which were not recorded as the electronic voting devices only gave ‘yes’ and ‘no’ options leaving delegates to wave cards to abstain. Between 155 and 180 people voted in favor of each decriminalization clause.
This is about 0.1% or one thousandth of the total membership of BMA. Given that those who attend trade union meetings tend to be more socially liberal in their outlook the vote can hardly be taken as representative. It is striking that over 1,500 doctors and medical students signed an open letter in just six days leading up to the vote calling on the BMA to reject the motion. This vote is reminiscent of a small number of members moving the BMA neutral on assisted suicide back in 2005. That vote produced similar outrage and was actually overturned a year later.
2. The BMA has betrayed its own ethics and turned its back on 2,500 years of history. The Hippocratic Oath (400 BC), which all doctors used to take on graduation, gives a blanket prohibition on all abortion: ‘I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest such counsel, nor in like manner will I give a woman a pessary to produce abortion.’ It is somewhat ironic that just 70 years ago in 1947 the BMA called abortion ‘the greatest crime.’
Follow LifeNews.com on Instagram for pro-life pictures.
The Declaration of Geneva (1948), which the BMA once affirmed, declares ‘I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception even against threat.’ So by becoming abortion’s greatest promoter and facilitator the medical profession in this country has betrayed its own historic position.
3. This vote was carefully stage-managed. Last year the same BMA meeting agreed to do some research into decriminalization of abortion and a 52 page briefing document was produced. This was purported to hold an objective centre ground but was heavily supportive of decriminalization and selective in its presentation. The document was ‘discussed’ in an almost unprecedented one-hour meeting immediately prior to the debate and one attendee remarked to me that after this they felt the vote was already a ‘done deal.’ It was very clear that some members of the BMA ethics committee who had contributed substantially to the report were heavily committed to decriminalization. One, Wendy Savage, claimed to have performed 10,000 abortions personally.
The debate was poorly informed and in fact actively misled. On two occasions, during the debate itself, incorrect information was given to delegates which would have affected their assessment of the issues. Several opposition delegates mentioned a ComRes poll which showed that only 1% of women wanted the abortion upper limit of 24 weeks to increase and 70% wanted to see a decrease to 20 weeks or below.
In order to undermine this poll one pro-abortion delegate, Emma Runswick, gave a ‘point of information’: ‘The ComRes poll has been mentioned a number of times. I googled it and it had 2,008 people in it. 904 were men, more than 1,000 of these people were over 50, 24-34-year-olds 290 of them and no under 25s. Thank you.’
The obvious intention as to undermine the poll by implying that under 25s were not asked their views. The totals of 2,008 and 904 she quoted were actually correct but 186 of these were people aged 18-24. How Runswick missed this is hard to understand as these figures were all on the same page in the report. Another speaker, Coral Jones, responded to the point made in a prominent Canadian medical journal that Canada has become ‘a haven for parents who would terminate female fetuses in favor of having sons’ after decriminalizing abortion. Jones announced that she also had googled male/female ratios in Canada and found them to be one to one. She conveniently ignored the fact that these variations in ratios noted in the journal occurred only in certain ethnic subgroups. This disinformation had the effect of undermining the credibility of opposition speakers who were actually telling the truth.
4. There was huge confusion among delegates about abortion gestational limits. The most obvious, and perhaps, the only way of decriminalizing abortion would be to repeal section 58 and 59 of the OAPA, which makes carrying out abortions, or supplying drugs or equipment for that purpose, illegal. This would render the Abortion Act, with all its provisions including the 24 weeks gestation limit, null and void. The fall-back position would be then the Infant Life (Preservation) Act (1929), which makes it illegal to destroy a child ‘capable of being born alive.’
The problem is that this Act defines this threshold as 28 weeks, although many babies born now as early as 23 to 24 weeks will survive with good neonatal care. So scrapping the relevant sections of the OAPA would leave us with a 28-week limit. If the ILPA were also to go it would make abortion legal for any and every reason right up to term. Delegates asked the chairman of the ethics committee, John Chisholm, to clarify this but the answer of 24 weeks was given with no legal justification or explanation. Later, after the vote had been taken there was an apology from the chair of the meeting about the confusion this created. As it is, the meeting referred the matter of ‘viability’ to the Royal College of obstetricians and gynecologists to seek their advice. But it was not clear how long that would take.
5. The decriminalization move was backed by a campaign run by abortion provider BPAS (British pregnancy advisory service). BPAS have specifically acknowledged that they campaign for removal of all gestation of time limits to abortion. Their CEO Ann Furedi stated categorically at the London launch of the campaign, ‘I want to be very, very clear and blunt… There should be no legal upper limit.’
Abortion providers have a huge vested interest in decriminalization because it would mean far less accountability and scrutiny for them. It’s fully understandable why they might seek this given the fact that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) had to step in to protect women from potential harm at Marie Stopes abortion clinics last year. Their report showed doctors had been block-signing consent forms, babies had been left in open beds, women were left at risk of infection, staff were not trained in how to respond to deteriorating patients and post-surgery safety checks had been completed before the surgery started.
7. Regulation alone, which is what the BMA is seeking, pulls any legal teeth from abortion oversight. Regulation, as opposed to legislation, would effectively leave doctors regulating themselves. Given how current guidelines are already flouted, we could only expect more of the same. Doctors are not above the law and they should be held legally accountable. We know that abortion can be used to cover up sexual crimes like rape, pedophilia, sexual abuse and incest.
8. The BPAS campaign is titled ‘We Trust Women’ but there is no evidence that women are actually seeking a change in the law. A ComRes poll in May 2017 (see above) found that only 1% of women wanted to see the time limit for abortion extended above 24 weeks and that 70% wanted to see the abortion limit reduced to 20 weeks or below. 91% of women favored a total an explicit ban on sex-selective abortion. So women want the law to be stricter on the legality and regulation of abortion, not laxer.
This whole campaign has been based on the false premise that women who seek abortions are living under the constant shadow of arrest. This is simply not true. Prosecutions are exceptionally rare – in many years there have been none at all – and in the past two years there were just two convictions both in extreme and disturbing scenarios.
9. Decriminalisation will move Britain in a direction that has not worked in other countries. China and Canada are currently the only countries which have gone down this route and after two states in Australia did so, concerns about an increase in late abortions, abortion tourism and babies being born alive after abortion, led other Australian states not to follow suit.
10. The move at the BMA ARM has been cynically planned just ahead of a new private member’s bill in the House of Commons. Earlier this year a 10-minute rule bill, tabled by Diane Johnson, attempted to decriminalize abortion. It passed by a slim majority but later ran out of parliamentary time. It is expected that this bill will return, quite possibly in the current private members’ ballot. We’ll know in just a few weeks’ time.
It was noteworthy that the BMA made its decision to decriminalize abortion the very same week that the Minister of women and equalities, Justin Greening, agreed to fund abortions in England and Wales for women from Northern Ireland, where it is currently illegal. The move followed a threat to place the measure as an amendment to the Queen’s speech, which could well have put the government itself at risk of a vote of no confidence at a very critical time in British history.
It’s clear that there has been a huge cultural shift within Britain in attitudes towards abortion amongst the general population, but especially amongst doctors. Some doctors have already resigned from the BMA after the vote. I will not be doing so myself, because I believe it’s best to try and fight these battles from within. Furthermore, I object to the doctors’ trade union being hijacked by a small number of activists with extreme views to achieve their ideological and political goals.
This decision could be reversed, but unless we act quickly to prevent any ensuing bill going through parliament, it may be too late. Regardless, doctors who respect human life before birth could easily overturn the decision by bringing opposing motions next year and ensuring that they turn up in sufficient numbers to win the vote. Whether this happens or not, time only will tell. However, I can’t help thinking that the real blame lies with the bulk of the medical profession who have either capitulated to the new ethic or acquiesced in silence whilst allowing others steer the ship. The church has also been largely silent.
The aim of medicine is to prevent and treat illness. Abortion, the intentional taking of human life before birth, neither prevents nor treats any illness. Pregnancy is not a disease. Abortion runs contrary to the general strategy of medicine which is why it is against all historic codes of medical ethics.
When the OAPA was first passed in 1861 it was inconceivable that doctors would ever be involved in abortion. However, now they are leading the way in the destruction of innocent human life. It is not too late to stop this, but only if we have the collective will and courage to do so.
LifeNews.com Note: Dr. Peter Saunders is a doctor and the CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a British organization with 4,500 doctors and 1,000 medical students as members. This article originally appeared on his blog. He is also associated with the Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK.
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British Medical Association Votes to Legalize Abortions Up to Birth
New Post has been published on http://www.therightnewsnetwork.com/british-medical-association-votes-to-legalize-abortions-up-to-birth/
British Medical Association Votes to Legalize Abortions Up to Birth
On June 27 delegates at the BMA annual representative meeting (ARM) voted to support the decriminalization of abortion. You can listen to the whole debate here and five brilliant two-minute speeches against the motion here.
The opposition speakers spoke with grace, eloquence, and courage but were unable to sway the meeting.
Many people may be surprised to know that abortion is still illegal in Britain. After all, there have been over 8 million abortions in Britain since the Abortion Act came into being 50 years ago in 1967.
Department of Health figures for England and Wales released last month show that there were 190,406 abortions in 2016 and that 98% of these were carried out on mental health grounds. The Abortion Act was intended to be restrictive, allowing abortion only in limited circumstances, but its provisions have been very liberally interpreted by doctors so that now one in every five pregnancies ends in abortion.
So in practice, although abortion is still technically illegal, the law is widely flouted. But, nonetheless, abortion remains illegal under the Offences Against the Person Act (OAPA). The clue as to why this law exists is the name – it’s based on the idea that the baby in the womb is a person who deserves legal protection along with the mother; in other words, that both lives matter. Every abortion stops a human heart beating and that is why abortion has been treated as legally different from any other medical procedure. It takes a human life.
Here are ten observations on the vote to legalize all abortion.
1. This change was brought about by a very small number of doctors. The BMA, Britain’s medical trade union, currently has 156,000 doctors and 19,000 medical students as members. That’s a total of 175,000. Only 500 members, however, attended the annual representative meeting and the five parts of the six-part motion supporting decriminalization [the other part was non-controversial] were backed by fewer than half of these. There were also a significant number of abstentions which were not recorded as the electronic voting devices only gave ‘yes’ and ‘no’ options leaving delegates to wave cards to abstain. Between 155 and 180 people voted in favor of each decriminalization clause.
This is about 0.1% or one thousandth of the total membership of BMA. Given that those who attend trade union meetings tend to be more socially liberal in their outlook the vote can hardly be taken as representative. It is striking that over 1,500 doctors and medical students signed an open letter in just six days leading up to the vote calling on the BMA to reject the motion. This vote is reminiscent of a small number of members moving the BMA neutral on assisted suicide back in 2005. That vote produced similar outrage and was actually overturned a year later.
2. The BMA has betrayed its own ethics and turned its back on 2,500 years of history. The Hippocratic Oath (400 BC), which all doctors used to take on graduation, gives a blanket prohibition on all abortion: ‘I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest such counsel, nor in like manner will I give a woman a pessary to produce abortion.’ It is somewhat ironic that just 70 years ago in 1947 the BMA called abortion ‘the greatest crime.’
Follow LifeNews.com on Instagram for pro-life pictures.
The Declaration of Geneva (1948), which the BMA once affirmed, declares ‘I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception even against threat.’ So by becoming abortion’s greatest promoter and facilitator the medical profession in this country has betrayed its own historic position.
3. This vote was carefully stage-managed. Last year the same BMA meeting agreed to do some research into decriminalization of abortion and a 52 page briefing document was produced. This was purported to hold an objective centre ground but was heavily supportive of decriminalization and selective in its presentation. The document was ‘discussed’ in an almost unprecedented one-hour meeting immediately prior to the debate and one attendee remarked to me that after this they felt the vote was already a ‘done deal.’ It was very clear that some members of the BMA ethics committee who had contributed substantially to the report were heavily committed to decriminalization. One, Wendy Savage, claimed to have performed 10,000 abortions personally.
The debate was poorly informed and in fact actively misled. On two occasions, during the debate itself, incorrect information was given to delegates which would have affected their assessment of the issues. Several opposition delegates mentioned a ComRes poll which showed that only 1% of women wanted the abortion upper limit of 24 weeks to increase and 70% wanted to see a decrease to 20 weeks or below.
In order to undermine this poll one pro-abortion delegate, Emma Runswick, gave a ‘point of information’: ‘The ComRes poll has been mentioned a number of times. I googled it and it had 2,008 people in it. 904 were men, more than 1,000 of these people were over 50, 24-34-year-olds 290 of them and no under 25s. Thank you.’
The obvious intention as to undermine the poll by implying that under 25s were not asked their views. The totals of 2,008 and 904 she quoted were actually correct but 186 of these were people aged 18-24. How Runswick missed this is hard to understand as these figures were all on the same page in the report. Another speaker, Coral Jones, responded to the point made in a prominent Canadian medical journal that Canada has become ‘a haven for parents who would terminate female fetuses in favor of having sons’ after decriminalizing abortion. Jones announced that she also had googled male/female ratios in Canada and found them to be one to one. She conveniently ignored the fact that these variations in ratios noted in the journal occurred only in certain ethnic subgroups. This disinformation had the effect of undermining the credibility of opposition speakers who were actually telling the truth.
4. There was huge confusion among delegates about abortion gestational limits. The most obvious, and perhaps, the only way of decriminalizing abortion would be to repeal section 58 and 59 of the OAPA, which makes carrying out abortions, or supplying drugs or equipment for that purpose, illegal. This would render the Abortion Act, with all its provisions including the 24 weeks gestation limit, null and void. The fall-back position would be then the Infant Life (Preservation) Act (1929), which makes it illegal to destroy a child ‘capable of being born alive.’
The problem is that this Act defines this threshold as 28 weeks, although many babies born now as early as 23 to 24 weeks will survive with good neonatal care. So scrapping the relevant sections of the OAPA would leave us with a 28-week limit. If the ILPA were also to go it would make abortion legal for any and every reason right up to term. Delegates asked the chairman of the ethics committee, John Chisholm, to clarify this but the answer of 24 weeks was given with no legal justification or explanation. Later, after the vote had been taken there was an apology from the chair of the meeting about the confusion this created. As it is, the meeting referred the matter of ‘viability’ to the Royal College of obstetricians and gynecologists to seek their advice. But it was not clear how long that would take.
5. The decriminalization move was backed by a campaign run by abortion provider BPAS (British pregnancy advisory service). BPAS have specifically acknowledged that they campaign for removal of all gestation of time limits to abortion. Their CEO Ann Furedi stated categorically at the London launch of the campaign, ‘I want to be very, very clear and blunt… There should be no legal upper limit.’
Abortion providers have a huge vested interest in decriminalization because it would mean far less accountability and scrutiny for them. It’s fully understandable why they might seek this given the fact that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) had to step in to protect women from potential harm at Marie Stopes abortion clinics last year. Their report showed doctors had been block-signing consent forms, babies had been left in open beds, women were left at risk of infection, staff were not trained in how to respond to deteriorating patients and post-surgery safety checks had been completed before the surgery started.
7. Regulation alone, which is what the BMA is seeking, pulls any legal teeth from abortion oversight. Regulation, as opposed to legislation, would effectively leave doctors regulating themselves. Given how current guidelines are already flouted, we could only expect more of the same. Doctors are not above the law and they should be held legally accountable. We know that abortion can be used to cover up sexual crimes like rape, pedophilia, sexual abuse and incest.
8. The BPAS campaign is titled ‘We Trust Women’ but there is no evidence that women are actually seeking a change in the law. A ComRes poll in May 2017 (see above) found that only 1% of women wanted to see the time limit for abortion extended above 24 weeks and that 70% wanted to see the abortion limit reduced to 20 weeks or below. 91% of women favored a total an explicit ban on sex-selective abortion. So women want the law to be stricter on the legality and regulation of abortion, not laxer.
This whole campaign has been based on the false premise that women who seek abortions are living under the constant shadow of arrest. This is simply not true. Prosecutions are exceptionally rare – in many years there have been none at all – and in the past two years there were just two convictions both in extreme and disturbing scenarios.
9. Decriminalisation will move Britain in a direction that has not worked in other countries. China and Canada are currently the only countries which have gone down this route and after two states in Australia did so, concerns about an increase in late abortions, abortion tourism and babies being born alive after abortion, led other Australian states not to follow suit.
10. The move at the BMA ARM has been cynically planned just ahead of a new private member’s bill in the House of Commons. Earlier this year a 10-minute rule bill, tabled by Diane Johnson, attempted to decriminalize abortion. It passed by a slim majority but later ran out of parliamentary time. It is expected that this bill will return, quite possibly in the current private members’ ballot. We’ll know in just a few weeks’ time.
It was noteworthy that the BMA made its decision to decriminalize abortion the very same week that the Minister of women and equalities, Justin Greening, agreed to fund abortions in England and Wales for women from Northern Ireland, where it is currently illegal. The move followed a threat to place the measure as an amendment to the Queen’s speech, which could well have put the government itself at risk of a vote of no confidence at a very critical time in British history.
It’s clear that there has been a huge cultural shift within Britain in attitudes towards abortion amongst the general population, but especially amongst doctors. Some doctors have already resigned from the BMA after the vote. I will not be doing so myself, because I believe it’s best to try and fight these battles from within. Furthermore, I object to the doctors’ trade union being hijacked by a small number of activists with extreme views to achieve their ideological and political goals.
This decision could be reversed, but unless we act quickly to prevent any ensuing bill going through parliament, it may be too late. Regardless, doctors who respect human life before birth could easily overturn the decision by bringing opposing motions next year and ensuring that they turn up in sufficient numbers to win the vote. Whether this happens or not, time only will tell. However, I can’t help thinking that the real blame lies with the bulk of the medical profession who have either capitulated to the new ethic or acquiesced in silence whilst allowing others steer the ship. The church has also been largely silent.
The aim of medicine is to prevent and treat illness. Abortion, the intentional taking of human life before birth, neither prevents nor treats any illness. Pregnancy is not a disease. Abortion runs contrary to the general strategy of medicine which is why it is against all historic codes of medical ethics.
When the OAPA was first passed in 1861 it was inconceivable that doctors would ever be involved in abortion. However, now they are leading the way in the destruction of innocent human life. It is not too late to stop this, but only if we have the collective will and courage to do so.
LifeNews.com Note: Dr. Peter Saunders is a doctor and the CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a British organization with 4,500 doctors and 1,000 medical students as members. This article originally appeared on his blog. He is also associated with the Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK.
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