What would jesus do with $4000?
How would you feel if you were unsure, frightened and vulnerable about your unwanted pregnancy and called a pregnancy counseling service for what you would expect would be clear, factual, information about your options. No religious spin, no agendas and no guilt-trips. This is the current range of options:
- continuing with the pregnancy and keeping the child;
- continuing with the pregnancy and giving the child up for adoption;
- ending the pregnancy by having an abortion.
I have a good friend who is a therapist and he is currently treating a woman who amoungst other things was told by a pregnancy counselor that she should give birth to the baby as it’s early July birth date would entitle her to $4000 and
“Couldn’t you use $4000?”
Whilst my friend’s anecdote describing the unethical and unregulated nature of the pregnancy counseling sector, such behavior is not an isolated case if we consider a report coming out of data from SA.
I’m supporting Senator Stott Despoja when she says:
“It is disturbing that many women have been given misleading and deceptive information on pregnancy options at what can be an emotional time.”
E-mail me an address and I’ll happily send you a postcard.
August 11th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
While I agree with you that women should be given factual information on all options available, and that the $4000 advice, if true, is despicable, I would hardly count a report compliled by the S.A. state government funded Pregnancy Advisory Centre as unbiased. As you can see from their website they are particularly focussed on abortion and making it a “positive experience” for women. I am finding it hard to find any reference to providing advice on adoption or support for mums to keep a baby i.e. other options to enable a woman to make a choice. Surely they are not guilty of only providing limited information are they? And isn’t “affirming” their experience and feellings just another form of emotional manipulation?
As for ol’ Sott-D herself, she has finally conceded in a recent interview, now that she is a mother, that the reality of life is a bit different to her rhetoric. Gee if she had only listened to us who were not so ready to affirm her pre-mum experience.
August 11th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
I should add that it is perfectly reasonable for anyone counselling a woman who desires an abortion to ask about their religious beliefs and those of others around them because they will have to contend with that if they go through with it. It is only fair to warn them of that potential conflict and check that they are able to deal with it. A few cups of tea in a counselling session before a procedure won’t be enough. It is also fair and reasonable to tell them that ten, twenty, thirty years from now, they may view their choices differently and find themselves grieving in another way.
August 11th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Affirming is respectful, post-decision intervention saint.
Asking about religion is not acceptable counseling protocol. Asking about supports is. Asking about the religion of those around the woman would result in a professional code of ethics violation.
The whole point is regulation so that these dodgy counselors either get qualified and accredited or get out!
Let me ask you saint, do you want your neurosurgeon to have a calling for the job or the formal qualifications?
How do you know the good senator is not saying she understands the decision to terminate an unwanted pregnancy even more now that she is a mother. Not all women want to be mothers.
August 12th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
saint said: “I should add that it is perfectly reasonable for anyone counselling a woman who desires an abortion to ask about their religious beliefs and those of others around them…”
You’re trolling, right? You can’t possibly be serious.
By your logic, I should come to you looking to buy a fridge and you should rightfully demand to know the details of my sex life, all while selling me a tunafish sandwich- and I’m supposed to be happy about it.
If a woman goes looking for termination services, she doesn’t want to know about your godbothering bullshit. Moreover, it’s patently unethical for any outfit to represent themselves as a pregnancy counselling service, while not only offering nothing of the sort, but calling women nasty names for seeking to exercise their rights to free reproductive choice for their trouble.
Count on authoritarian slime like you to do an ad-hominem on Stott-Despoja. Back under your rock, godboy.
August 19th, 2006 at 11:32 am
Suki queried: “…do you want your neurosurgeon to have a calling for the job or the formal qualifications?”
I would rather hope for both, thanks. 😀
August 20th, 2006 at 10:21 am
[…] Australian Democrats Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja proposed a private member’s bill to put an end to government sponsored deceptive anti-choice pressure groups operating ‘crisis pregnancy counselling’ centres. Last week, ACT Federal Senator Gary Humphries used his casting vote to veto Stott-Despoja’s bill. […]
August 22nd, 2006 at 10:17 pm
The main reason that terminations are sought, is that there is no support from the father of the embryo.
Yes of course both participants should have thought about that BEFORE the act, but being the one STUCK with the situation, it is the female who needs solutions.
I really do wish that ALL THE MONEY AND angst spent on ProLife activity was directed at educating boys about the responsibility of CORRELATING THEIR SPERMSPENDING WITH THEIR LIFESTYLE AMBITIONS.
Suki could you crosspost your piece over at Womens Forum please? It is going to be a stale blog if one of the team doesn’t do something there soon.
Love and peace from hb
August 23rd, 2006 at 9:13 am
Ugh, her grey face just reminds me of early pregnancy – 24 hour nausea! I don’t know why they call it “morning sickness”.
Ah, memories of pregnancies both unwanted and wanted.
August 23rd, 2006 at 9:20 am
That’s kind of the point, Brownie; being pregnant when you don’t want to be is not a happy event, no matter how one resolves it. No woman revels in the notion of having to terminate a pregnancy or bear an unplanned child- it’s definitely not a celebrated event in this life.
This is one of the points where anti-choicers go screaming down the slippery slope. These twits want you to believe that some women go out and get pregnant just so they can have a wonderful, lovely abortion.
However, I can imagine the relief a woman experiences when she does get un-pregnant or if the mere possibility exists that she can manage her reproductive life at will.
September 24th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
Why are their so many abortions ? Why weren’t they using available contraceptives ?
September 25th, 2006 at 7:14 am
Alan, I can understand why you’d have so little experience with contraceptives, but here’s a clue; they don’t work 100% of the time.
Any other of life’s little mysteries need explaining for you? No problem, just ask, if you can…