Or “abortion” as it’s commonly known. Today I had a rather ugly argument on a Facebook group for UK based liberals, with a woman who claims to be a liberal, but… Well… Isn’t.

The theme of the discussion was Nadine Dorries’ proposed amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill which cover the issue of abortions. The tl;dr version is that Dorries was trying to strip not-for-profit charities who carry out terminations of the right to counsel pregnant women because they might try to improve their profits… By… Wait a second… Not-for-profit…. Worried they might profit… Say, somebody’s not being honest here. And it’s Dorries. And her backers (rumoured to be US based “pro-life” organisations, but that’s unconfirmed because they’re hiding behind a law firm as a front, and the law firm isn’t saying – neither is Nadine Dorries).

Anyway, back to the argument. The lady on Facebook, let’s call her Derpina, treated us to a grisly tale of woe in which she was emotionally manipulated by one of their counsellors into paying the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS, one of the aforementioned not-for-profits) for a termination that she didn’t really want, they were only interested in her money, she only went there for contraceptive advice but instead they used her partner (who didn’t want kids) to emotionally blackmail, trick or otherwise coerce her into a termination. Yeah, I know. Visiting a charity who carry out terminations (rather than, say, your doctor), in order to ask for contraceptive advice, for a couple who are already pregnant. Sounds legit.

So anyway, after I’d very politely dismantled her story and her claims that every woman who’s used them hates BPAS by posting reams of positive testimonials and their Quality Care Commission reports (their average patient satisfaction survey score is 9 out of 10), she messaged me the following:

“Hi – about the abortion thing, I do not really expect you to understand. I am not going to post on [the board we were using] any more as I have made my point as clearly as I can. As things stand it is possible to get abortions really easily, and post-abortion councelling. Where the balance is wrong is that it is really hard to get impartial pregnancy advice. You would not agree but I can see that abortion clinics are more interested in getting money off vulnerable women than advising them, are very doom and gloom places and are far from impartial, in my limited experience (but at least I have more experience than you!). You argue that religious groups would blackmail pregnant women into keeping their babies. Again in my experience that was absolutely not the case! Thanks to people like you, I will be taking up this issue further. How would you feel if you had booked in for contraception advice, turned up to find that you were booked in for an operation on your most private parts and was pressured into going through with it “before it’s too late”, in the presence of your partner who does not want any children with you, who then say they are not in a position to offer any couple councelling, and then charge you £50? I can’t think of a better analogy that a man may understand? Yours in disappointment… with a British culture that just does not value life :(“

Well, something about that didn’t sit quite right with me… So I checked Derpina’s Facebook page. Want to guess what she has under “Religion” and “Favourite Book”? I’ll spare you my reply to her, but suffice it to say I pulled no punches. Quite unlike me, I know.

The whole exchange reminded me strongly of a page we talked about here two or three years ago, but which I couldn’t find in the archives, so I assume it’s never had a thread of its own: “The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion” – When the Anti-Choice Choose, published in 2000 by Joyce Arthur. I recommend reading that whole page if you haven’t already, but the one she reminded me of was this one:

“We saw a woman recently who after four attempts and many hours of counselling both at the hospital and our clinic, finally, calmly and uneventfully, had her abortion. Four months later, she called me on Christmas Eve to tell me that she was not and never was pro-choice and that we failed to recognize that she was clinically depressed at the time of her abortion. The purpose of her call was to chastise me for not sending her off to the psych unit instead of the procedure room.” (Clinic Administrator, Alberta)

With perhaps a soupçon of this one:

“”I once had a German client who greatly thanked me at the door, leaving after a difficult 22-week abortion. With a gleaming smile, she added: ‘Und doch sind Sie ein Mörderer.’ (‘And you’re still a murderer.’)” (Physician, The Netherlands)”