Parenting must be positive option, says psychiatrist

A LEADING psychiatrist has questioned whether the Crisis Pregnancy Agency will meet its goal of reducing abortion figures unless it places greater emphasis on making parenting positive.

Dr Patricia Casey said she doesn’t accept the CPA is putting enough emphasis on crisis pregnancy counselling. Instead, she said, they focused too much on contraception, which is irrelevant if someone has a crisis pregnancy.

Her comments were sharply refuted by CPA staff who said they increased crisis pregnancy counselling services by 50% since their establishment in 2002.

Dr Casey, who works at the Mater Hospital, said: “They have advertisements that include reference to agencies that can refer you for an abortion. It is a contradiction that the agency set up to reduce abortions is seeing the very thing it’s supposed to reduce as a form of positive option.

“They should be pointing out the psychiatric problems that can result after an abortion and as far as I’m aware they don’t. We should be giving women the sense they can cope and that it’s not the end of the world.”

Acting chief executive of the CPA Caroline Spillane said that up to 13 different organisations are involved in their Positive Options campaign and that they offer a huge range of counselling options for women.

She said: “We have an exemplary record and have increased access to free counselling in this country by 50%. We provide a large level of funding to a diverse number of organisations including Cura, Life and IFPA. We also offer parenting courses and supported accommodation for women who decide to have their baby and can’t live at home.”

Dr Casey was speaking in advance of a 21st birthday party in Cork to celebrate the establishment of the Life organisation, which offers counselling to women with crisis pregnancies.

Dr Casey said abortion was not supported by feminists in the 1800s as it was seen as “indicative of oppression of women by men”.

She accused the pro-choice lobby of treating the foetus like it wasn’t a person, a technique she claimed mirrored early 19th century Canadian law which said “women were not persons”.