Demonising and caricaturing the entire pro-life movement is not an appropriate way for the Government to spend taxpayer's money, the Pro Life Campaign (PLC) has said. The group was responding to statements made by Minister for Health, Mary Harney, attacking counselling agencies which she claimed manipulated young, pregnant women.
Her remarks came as a new campaign by the Crisis Pregnancy Agency (CPA) was launched highlighting these agencies.
Director of the Agency Caroline Spillane claimed that between July 2007 and March 2008 its funded service providers had reported 67 cases where women had been been the victims of such agencies purporting to be unbiased but which had an agenda to steer women away from abortion.
In response, Ms Caitriona Cummins of the Pro-Life Campaign agreed that pregnancy counselling agencies “should not engage in rogue practices or disseminate bogus information”.
But Ms Cummins added that the decision by Minister Harney to examine only counselling groups opposed to abortion indicated “an obvious ideological bias”.
“We need a responsible debate on what constitutes best practice in pregnancy counselling not ad hominem attacks which create an impression the problem is exclusively a pro-life one,” she said.
Commenting on the CPA advertising campaign, Ms Cummins continued: “Using taxpayers’ money to demonise and caricature the entire pro-life movement is certainly not an appropriate way for the Government to behave”.
A balanced approach to the issue would also express concern about how pro-choice counselling agencies refused to make women aware of the latest peer reviewed studies showing the negative long-term psychological consequences of abortion, she added.
Referring to last week’s interview on RTÉ's Pat Kenny Show with the woman at the centre of the C case, Ms Cummins said that the HSE also had questions to answer about the treatment of vulnerable young pregnant women in its care.
The girl at the centre of that case, who was in the care of the Eastern Health Board at the time, never had the abortion procedure explained before she was taken to England to end her pregnancy, Ms Cummins said. She subsequently regretted her abortion but no health care professionals involved have ever been held to account.
“It would be fitting if the Minister for Health investigated the apparently appalling tactics used by Department of Health personnel in securing an abortion in this particular case,” she concluded.
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