Letter to the Editor: Abortion doctor a phone call away
3rd June 2015Dear Editor,Dr Simon Snook and his colleagues plan for speedier access to abortion according to your lead story “Abortion doctor a phone call away”.A senior theatre nurse who had participated in “thousands of abortions” once described the current system in an email to National Radio, as being like a “conveyor belt”.Dr Snook wants to make what can be a life-changing experience – a conveyor belt going even faster.We have members who have had abortions, and I meet counsellors who regularly console post-abortive women and girls who have one complaint in common.They felt rushed into a decision that they now bitterly regret, they weren’t counselled on other options, they were misled about the reality of the baby they were carrying, i.e. “It’s just a blob”.In short, they were denied time to consider their options and denied informed consent about the after-effects of the procedure.Consider the silence of the medical establishment and the refusal of Ministry of Health to fund further research, when in 2006 and 2009, the Health and Development Team at Otago University revealed those after effects.The Abortion Supervisory Committee which will be overseeing Dr Snook’s plan, requested the Team not to publish their findings.Yours sincerely,Bernard MoranNational President of Voice for Life Inc