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Updated 12.37pm
HEALTH MINISTER SIMON Harris has said he is “extraordinarily concerned” and “sickened” by undercover filming that showed a woman in a crisis pregnancy clinic in Dublin giving misinformation about abortion.
In a report for The Times (Ireland edition), reporters Ellen Coyne and Catherine Sanz secretly recorded a consultation in a clinic in Dublin’s north inner city between a staff member and a woman seeking advice on a crisis pregnancy.
The staff member advised the woman that abortion increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer and that women who have had abortions are “known to neglect their children”.
Speaking to RTÉ News, Harris said the reports were “very alarming, very worrying”.
I’ve asked for an urgent update on this. I will consider every possible policy option available to me to make sure that women are presented with factual, accurate information in relation to their own health.
Rogue pregnancy agencies have been operating in Ireland for over a decade without any regulation. There have been repeated calls for statutory regulations for pregnancy advice and counselling services, but successive governments have failed to legislate.
Speaking to reporters today, Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar, who previously served as Health Minister, said the Government is currently looking into the issue of regulation.
It’s very important that all counselling and psychotherapy be regulated. It’s not just about abortion clinics, it’s about all forms of counselling. As things stand, almost anyone can say that they are a counsellor.
“They could have done a night course or a weekend course and put up a brass plate to say that they are a counsellor and that’s why it’s important that that profession be regulated.
“There is a whole process underway in Government to regulate what they call the allied healthcare professionals … I think it’s important that that be done as soon as it can be done. I know Minister Harris wants to do that,” he said.
‘Entirely untrue’
Chairman of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Dr Peter Boylan told RTÉ News there is no evidence to suggest abortion makes women more likely to abuse their children, nor does it increase their risk of developing breast cancer.
Doctors for Choice, a group that wants the Eighth Amendment to be repealed, said the “information” being given to the woman in the video is “entirely untrue and dangerous”.
“[Women] deserve evidence-based, unbiased information provided in a setting where basic first principles regarding counselling apply – where there is no agenda regarding the decisions they reach and the advice is non-directive.”
In a statement to RTÉ, Pro-Life Campaign spokesperson Cora Sherlock said: “It goes without saying that women facing an unexpected pregnancy should at all times be given accurate and precise information.”
However, she criticised the Government for commenting on this, saying they showed “no such interest” when counsellors from the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) were filmed “telling women to lie to their doctors and say they had a miscarriage if physical complications arose following their abortion”.
- with reporting by Christine Bohan
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Terrifying but sadly all too predictable as temperatures rise. You’d hope this would wake a few of the deniers up as it’s more local than some of the countries people chauvinistically dismiss. But alas these people would still be posting their copy and paste, Trump n dumpster science support, while the fire or flood is on their doorstep.
@SerotoninWars: you do realize they’ve had wildfires all over the globe for centuries?
@Niall English: You do realise that they have been far worse in recent years on account of climate change?
@Niall English: You do realise that ever more parched woodlands catch fire ever more easily, which spreads ever more quickly?
@JOHN O CONNELL: You mean when there were only a few millions of people?
And vast areas of the planet were covered in forests?
Imagine that!
@JOHN O CONNELL: Those fires were caused by a collision with fragments of a comet. What is your point?
@JOHN O CONNELL: Younger Dryas
It must have all grown back, from being burnt the last few years
@P. V. Aglue: You think houses and factories grow back?
What did the Greeks ever do for us?
@Padraig O’Brien: The birthplace of western thinking.
@Padraig O’Brien: Plato, Aristotle Euclid’s geometry aid the foundations for European rationality and scientific inquiry, and influenced the development of European science and mathematics. The epics of Homer and the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles deeply influenced European literature; their Greek humanism, that emphasized individual dignity, profoundly affected the development of European and American literary traditions. The music of Ancient Greece, particularly the theoretical frameworks of harmonics developed by the likes of Pythagoras, laid the foundations of Western music theory. And the political ideas of Ancient Greece, particularly the concept of democracy as practised in Athens, have had a lasting impact on European politics and systems of government.
@David Jordan: I frequently reread an old school text book on ancient Greek history by Bury.
(Am reading it again at the moment.)
Fascinating.
@David Jordan: “The music of Ancient Greece, particularly the theoretical frameworks of harmonics developed by the likes of Pythagoras, laid the foundations of Western music theory”.
And then (c)rap came along and that all went out the window.
Here in Bulgaria the fires started in June and keep going. There is several at any given time, and once a fire is put down, another one starts in a different place. There are constant appeals for volunteers to help the fire service, who are exhausted. Turkey sent fire trucks to help, and the Chesch republic sent two planes. What seems to be missing is coordinated EU level approach to this – Southern Europe is burning, and will continue burning every summer. Did someone ask Ursula what the plan is?
@ Thesaltyurchin and David Jordan
Are ye too young to have seen Monty Python?
have your say