A devastating report emerged before Christmas from the Care Quality Commission following inspections of Marie Stopes International (MSI) abortion clinics across the country. MSI is the giant of the abortion industry worldwide, providing a third of Britain’s 200,000 or so abortions each year.
Among an extensive catalogue of failings, the CQC reported that in two MSI centres, clinicians were signing piles of permission slips for abortions – between 30 and 60 at a time – despite the fact that inspectors “were not assured clinicians had access to all patient information”.
The CQC also highlighted a failure to adhere to basic standards, noting that nearly one fifth of staff were not up to date with safeguarding training and there was poor monitoring and risk management regarding whether patients had given informed consent.
One of the most disturbing discoveries involved a woman with learning difficulties procuring an abortion although it was not clear she could properly comprehend what she was consenting to. On top of this, the CQC observed that her situation “was poorly and insensitively handled by doctors.”
The damning report marks a significant change. Pro-life politicians and lobbyists have long voiced their frustrations with a legal and medical establishment that seems to look the other way when wrongdoing is exposed in the abortion industry.
For example, following an eye-opening piece of investigative journalism into the practice of sex-selective abortion in Britain, Keir Starmer, then director of public prosecutions, said it would not be in the public interest to prosecute the two doctors involved. When Fiona Bruce subsequently attempted to amend the law so that it was beyond doubt that sex-selective abortion was illegal in the UK, MPs, along with women’s charities and lobbyists, lined up to oppose a move which might have saved the lives of baby girls.
Later, in 2014, it emerged that 67 doctors had pre-signed abortion forms without knowing anything about the women concerned. The General Medical Council, however, still ruled out any disciplinary measures against those involved and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) again refused to take action.
So pro-life campaigners have roundly welcomed the fact that the CQC is taking the MSI failings so seriously. Peter D Williams, spokesman for Right to Life, explained that, as a regulator of healthcare, the CQC was not tainted by pro-abortion politics.
“The CPS, GMC, and Parliament are all far more politicised by virtue of the ideology of their leading members. Thus, their response to sex-selection and pre-signing is due to their institutionally dogmatic belief in permissive abortion provision, and rejection of anything that would undermine that.”
What happens next will really answer to what extent the abortion industry is being held to account. The charity Life, for example, believes that MSI should have its licence revoked.
Life, along with other pro-life groups, want to see an end to abortion altogether, an objective that often seems impossible. But at least the recent revelations concerning MSI certainly provide a crucial opportunity to dismantle a powerful assumption in the abortion debate: that the abortion industry has a monopoly on compassion when it comes to vulnerable women.
Consider, for example, that the CQC’s report revealed that there were 2,634 “concerning incidents” relating to women’s safety within its clinics during 2015 to 2016. As Clare McCullough of the Good Counsel Network said: “The pro-life movement needs to respond to this report with a better and better outreach to women.”
Campaigners might also use the CQC’s report to illuminate the de facto application of our abortion law. As Peter D Williams put it, the report’s findings are indicative of a wider problem: the “total failure of UK abortion law to limit abortion and protect pregnant mothers and their unborn children”. “It is not the disease,” he said, “but a symptom of it. We can be glad that the CQC may detect, and to an extent deter, such abuses, but unless we are willing to address the ultimate and underlying cause of this dehumanising behaviour, we may not hope to end it.”
This is an opportune time for the pro-life movement to challenge politicians, doctors and lawyers to act in the interests of both women and their babies, and to urge them to stop placing their trust in an industry that has failed mothers and children.
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