Berkeley Street, Inns Quay, Dublin 7

This morning.

Ellen Coyne, in The Times Ireland edition, reports:

Simon Harris has published a new proposal designed to crack down on rogue crisis pregnancy agencies.

The Health and Social Care Professionals Act will include plans for a 13-person board to set minimum standards for the profession in early 2018. The department of health told The Times that counsellors who claim to offer objective advice to pregnant women will also be included.

The health minister said in September last year that he wanted to legislate against anti-abortion groups posing as crisis pregnancy counsellors.

His move followed an investigation by The Times that revealed groups told women that abortion caused breast cancer and could turn them into child abusers.

Crisis pregnancy agencies not in receipt of state funding are not regulated by the HSE. The government said that it would fix the anomaly several times over the past year but repeatedly missed its own targets for doing so.

Minister set to take on pregnancy groups (Ellen Coyne, The Times)

Previously: Behind The Blue Door

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17 thoughts on “Finally?

  1. Daisy Chainsaw

    The 8th amendment committee has done a great job of hearing from medical experts who deal with crisis pregnancies on a daily basis. These experts appear to be more pro than anti choice due to dealing with the actual reality of situations. The so called “prolife” experts seem to be running scared from the committee, for fear their backward opinions are exposed as dangerous nonsense.

    Hopefully, this legislation will stop women and girls being lied to by devious people who care nothing about woman and girls, only the fetishisation of foetuses. These so called “prolife” organisations stop caring once the woman has given birth.

      1. Daisy Chainsaw

        How is it anti life to care more about women and girls and their health and wellbeing than a blastocyte/embryo? Why fetishise the foetus above the female carrying it?

  2. Killian G

    We should also legislate to prevent ANY involvement by for-profit organizations in ANYTHING to do with abortion. The procedure, advice around it and post-procedure counselling and support should only be provided by impartial, nothing-to-gain-from-it public healthcare system. And it MUST be free of charge.

    1. newsjustin

      Why? Why is abortion so different a procedure that private medical care must be forbidden?

      (Hint: I know the answer)

    2. Daisy Chainsaw

      Why only abortion? Why is it okay to profit from private cancer care, or hip operations? The health service is in such an awful state that it can’t counsel people for years, but the people in need of it can seek private help. Health insurance plays an important part in access to care, I would assume, VHI, LAYA etc would cover abortion and aftercare in their policies too.

      I fully believe in #FreeSafeLegal, but if a woman has the means to pay for a service and that’s what she prefers, then she should have that choice too.

      1. newsjustin

        Yeah. I agree Daisy. Was just curious why Killian was insisting abortion be treated differently from all other procedur

      2. Killian G

        Not just abortion. I don’t think any healthcare should be privatised, but that’s a different fight – and one that’s been already lost, unfortunately.

        My fear is that, once the referendum passes (well, fingers crossed), we’ll end up with hundreds of private clinics making quick cash out of often vulnerable women. This is what you see across the US – get them in, quick job, credit card. Abortion must be provided with compassion and patience. Those things don’t mix with profit.

        I understand what you’re saying about women having the choice to pay if they want – but they shouldn’t have to. And there should be no incentive or benefit to going private.

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