What the Home Affairs Committee Failed to Discover about Harassment
On 12 December 2017, the Home Affairs Committee decided to have a Select Committee to hear from Ealing Council, Abortion clinics and protest groups on the nature and scale of protests outside of abortion clinics. You can read about this topic here and here and here and here and here and here.
It did not occur to the Home Office originally, if there were going to conduct an in depth investigation into the topic to talk about the groups who actually organise the “protests” themselves. But in the end, a representative from Good Counsel Network and the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children were invited to the meeting to be harangued by the chair of the meeting and continually interrupted.
The meeting was chaired by Yvette Cooper MP, a member of Parliament who encouraged her own party to vote in favour of sex selection abortion in 2015. During the vote she stood by the no lobby saying to MPs “We’re voting no on this one.”
The Committee failed to notice the conflict of interest of the abortion providers, who have vested financial interest in the provision of ‘buffer zones’ to protect their provision of abortion. Providers will receive a three or four figure sum if a woman has an abortion, and nothing if a woman does not receive an abortion.
For 3 years, the biggest abortion charity in the country has been campaigning for the introduction of buffer zones to protect their business from prayer vigils outside abortion centres. Government give BPAS £30 million a year for their work. BPAS then politically campaign to serve their own financial and ideological interests back to government - such as decriminalisation and buffer zones. BPAS are reported to now have a whole team working in public policy (7 people?) to further their interest.
Marie Stopes Ealing was mentioned multiple times in the Home Affairs Committee. Aisha Chitira died in an ambulance after having an abortion in Ealing. Another doctor from Ealing was struck off the medical register for performing a botched abortion in the centre. There have been a total of 21 ambulances that have arrived at Marie Stopes Ealing from 2014-2016. A recent freedom of information request revealed that there were 124 ambulances called to the 6 major abortion centres in London in the last 3 years, at just over 40 a year is almost one a week.
But none of this evidence was even considered as harassment during the meeting. Nor was the CQC who discovered a catalogue of failings in Marie Stopes clinics around the country.
The definition of harassment did not include women who routinely are forced into abortions, sometimes by overbearing boyfriends or relatives. Such a testimony was recently heard in the British Parliament from Edward Leigh MP by a woman who leapt out the ground floor window of the abortion centre and cleared three fences to escape.
It was after meeting pro-life women at a vigil outside the clinic, who offered her the support she felt she needed to keep her baby, that she felt she had the confidence to leave and she was then supported by the group the women worked with to continue the pregnancy.
She ended her testimony to Parliament by saying, “I had my baby who is now three and a half years old. She’s an amazing, perfect little girl and the love of my life. I want MPs here today calling to introduce buffer zones to realise, that she would not be alive today, if they had their way.”
At present, forced abortions are contrary to British law. However forced abortions are something that those who organise prayer vigils witness on a regular basis in the United Kingdom.
The lack of informed consent was not considered harassment in the in-depth assessment.
NHS guidelines (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/consent-to-treatment) stipulate that a person must be given all of the information in terms of the treatment involved, including the benefits and risks, whether there are reasonable alternative treatments, and what will happen if treatment doesn't go ahead. I can't understand, that why abortion as one of the most common procedure provided on the NHS, rarely comes with informed consent - because women are not fully informed of all the risks. I have experienced personally first hand many situations where informed consent has been denied for women seeking abortions.
The NHS Choices websites describes informed consent as “Informed: the person must be given full information about what the treatment involves, including the benefits and risks, whether there are reasonable alternative treatments, and what will happen if treatment does not go ahead. Healthcare professionals should not withhold information just because it may upset or unnerve the person.”
Some people argue that many women are not fully informed of the mental, physical and psychological consequences of abortion because Government funded organisations such as Marie Stopes and BPAS have vested financial and ideological interests in providing abortions devoid of providing impartial informed consent of exactly what might happen after an abortion.
Would your in depth assessment of harassment include funeral house staff who are shocked and disgusted by reports of BPAS Twickenham defrosting aborted babies in the microwave? I have heard reports that BPAS give the option of funeral services for late term abortions. Funeral parlour staff reported they had to wait in the abortuary because the nurses said that they have to defrost the body of the baby in the microwave and the nurses said not to mention it to anyone. Could this be considered harassment or criminal behaviour towards the remains of a dead child?
Would the in depth assessment of harassment include former abortion staff who felt harassed by their employer?
One Marie Stopes employee called Dr Sharma refused to comply with anti-patient protocols and threatened to expose their behaviour. He received racist comments at work along with bullying, before being given false charges of sexual assault leading to a high profile crown court trial in March 2009 with the attendant media frenzy.
The shocking racism and bullying through the hands of Sue Smooker and Julie Ackroyd along with the senior managers at the London office left the employee with long term psychiatric damage. Employees of Marie Stopes are alleged to have falsely accused one of their staff of sexual harassment. Marie Stopes employees supposedly were happy to lie in court about events while a former employee was bullied and racially abused at work. The perpetrators of racism and bullying got promoted in the organisation.
The worker described working in Marie Stopes in Fallowfield in the following way. The abortion industry is a money driven business. Once you have a license it is just money all the way. You don’t pay taxes because you are a charity, you employ vulnerable doctors and nurses at cheap rates and exploit vulnerable girls from Ireland, Scotland and England. The managers make huge bonuses, go on expensive skiing holidays, buy designer clothes and shoes and watch porn during working hours and organise sex theme parties. Medical decisions are taken by non-medical managers. Employees are forced to counter sign consent forms without having seen the patient and often in advance. Employees have been forced to anaesthetise against the protocols of the Royal College and they told their employees that the GMC and Royal Colleges were in their pockets. The employee is supposed to have signed a deal of confidentiality with his employer so this story never made the papers.
In the Mail on Sunday (4/9/2005), A former administrator of the Marie Stopes Raleigh abortion clinic in Brixton described the atmosphere and environment of her former place of work. She said, “The more people you got booked in for terminations the better your bonus would be, I was under pressure to ensure people had their terminations so that Marie Stopes could keep the money” and “Then there were the consultations… girls would come in expecting to discuss it with a doctor but the clinic would use nurses because it would save time… the nurses would get them over with within ten minutes.”
The in depth assessment did not include an analysis of how abortion providers, who receive million of pounds of taxpayers money, are allowed to lobby the Government for decriminalisation, buffer zones and international aid? Matt Hancock, a minister for the Cabinet Office in February 2016, said that “Taxpayers money” must not be wasted on the farce of Government lobbying government.” The previous Government made a promise that “taxpayers won’t be made to foot the bill for political campaigning and political lobbying.”
Furthermore, would the study of harassment extend to Parliamentarians who have spoken about abortion, such as Nadine Dorries MP who has been considerably bullied? The message to Nadine was simple from those she was attacked by: ‘speak about abortion in the Parliament and we will intimidate you.’ Nadine was formerly a nurse, who assisted in abortions. She witnessed babies that were born alive, who were supposed to be aborted, and the total disregard for human life that existed where she worked. A member of the House of Lords, David Alton had his office burnt to the ground when it was known he would campaign against abortion. The organisation EMILY’s List provides money for pro-abortion women to secure seats as MPs in a cash for policies approach. This kind of behaviour should not be tolerated in British politics.
Would your in depth assessment include analysis of where the current abortion law is being broken on a daily basis in the United Kingdom? The abortion industry has demonstrated from a litany of cases worldwide that it has little to no regard for the legal limitations under which it is supposed to operate, or for the safety or well being of its clients. 98% of British abortions are carried out on the grounds of protecting the mental health of women. In 2011, The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges published a report concluding that abortion poses no greater risk to mental health than childbirth for those with unwanted pregnancies. Over 1,000 times a day, British doctors are signing legal doctors authorising abortions on mental health grounds, when there are no mental health grounds for abortion. In reality, 98% of abortions in the UK today are illegal. The doctors are either ignorant, or committing perjury by being deliberately disingenuous. Also of note is the CQC report on the behaviour and actions of Marie Stopes International, and allegations of bonuses for abortion staff meeting quotas. With the vested financial interests of abortion provision, abortion providers in the United Kingdom will usually receive a 3 or 4 figure sum for an abortion, largely paid for by taxpayers, after providing “impartial” advice on whether to have one or not.
Would the report include evidence from many groups who peacefully and calmly offer support, friendship, practical advice or help, financial support and housing outside abortion centres? Would the report acknowledge the vested financial interests of abortion providers to demonise these groups for political and ideological reasons? The in depth investigation failed to listen to pro-life organisations who have experienced considerable harassment outside abortion centres? Many of the these organisations would be happy to give invaluable advice and testimony to the many questions that you have and experience considerable and extensive harassment for years despite behaving in a peaceful, prayerful and legal manner. Surely if they are interested in harassment, many of the people ironically and erroneously accused of harassment but who actually receive it would be a valuable testimony for in depth research.
But none of this is relevant for a hatchet job, or Yvette Cooper, who gets her ideas from legal procedure from Alice in Wonderland. “No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first - verdict afterwards.”
