Dorries’ abortion debate: a lazy little fisk

November 3rd, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

Here is a little fisk of Dorries’ debate the other day. This is just Dorries’ opening gambit. I’ve probably missed the less obvious bullshit.

The full transcript of the Induced Abortion debate is here.

If any abortion provider is to come to Northern Ireland, Marie Stopes is probably the best bet. Marie Stopes is one of the most professional and non-advocacy-driven abortion providers. It has no political ideology and is concerned only for the health of the woman, and it operates in a professional manner. So I think that, if Northern Ireland is to have an abortion provider, Marie Stopes are the people to have.

That is a hell of a lot of praise considering what she implied about Maries Stopes back in September 2011…

“Under present legislation, doctors or pregnancy advisory services have no duty to offer professional, impartial help to women considering an abortion,” the MP for Mid-Bedfordshire said.

“Moreover, most counselling is offered by the big abortion providers themselves, like the British Pregnancy Advisory Service or the Marie Stopes clinics, which are paid millions by the NHS to carry out terminations – and so profit from the process.”

That’s not such a ringing endorsement, and the last sentence, especially the “and so profit from the process” part make Marie Stopes sound like a for-profit company, doing these abortions and offering counselling to make a fast buck, to satisfy it’s shareholders. Marie Stopes International is a not-for-profit company. Any profit doesn’t go to shareholders, but go towards furthering it’s aims and goals here and abroad. You may not agree with some of those goals but it’s so far removed from the profit making organisation that Dorries implied.

A study by the Centre for Sexual Health Research at the university of Southampton and the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the university of Kent found that 41% of women who have second-trimester abortions do so because they were not sure about having an abortion and took a while to make up their mind to ask for one. I believe that one positive effect of reducing the limit to 20 weeks might be to focus the mind slightly sooner than 23 weeks. Because abortion is available until 24 weeks, there is a laxity, as people have a prolonged period to make up their mind. The research says that women took a long time to make up their mind. Maybe reducing the upper limit will help.

*imagines Dorries stood in front of a pregnant woman, impatiently tapping her foot saying “Come on. Make up your mind. It’s not a hard decision, ffs”)

The medical profession cannot make two arguments. Doctors cannot say that a poorly baby’s life is worth trying to save from 20 or 21 weeks onwards while stating at the same time that there is no chance of life up to 24 weeks, so it is okay to abort up until that point. There is an inconsistency in retaining 24 weeks.

There is no inconsistency. An abortion is granted, for whatever reason. Rightly or wrongly. Effort is spent trying to save a premature baby because the legal guardians that have the say of whether to resuscitate or not say resuscitate. If they didn’t, the premature baby would be left to die. This, I guess, happens with nearly every premature baby because they are wanted babies.

This next bit of bullshit speaks for itself…

[Dorries:] Doctors cannot have it both ways. They cannot say in the NHS, “We try to save babies from 20 weeks because they are viable,” and then say, “We abort at 24 weeks because they are not.” The two arguments cannot stand. That is an anomaly, and it must end.

Dr Wollaston: I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. On that point, we are not trying to save babies at 20 weeks. No babies survive at 20 weeks’ gestation. If she refers back to the British Medical Journal paper considering two periods of survival, the increase in survival of pre-term babies after the 2000 period was due entirely to babies born at 24 and 25 weeks. The absolute limit of survival is about 22 weeks; that is when we try to save them. Will she please stop suggesting that the NHS is capable of saving babies at 20 weeks? It is simply not true.

Boom! The Tory from Totnes gets Dorries bang to rights with her bullshit statistics. And Dorries’ reply?…

Maybe the NHS should stop trying to save babies from 20 weeks. My neighbour 10 years ago was a 22-week survivor. Although she had slight problems, they did not prevent her from going to school and living a full and wonderful life. Babies do survive from 22 weeks, which is my argument for viability. If the RCOG wants to say that viability is at 24 weeks, it must look at the living babies born at 22 weeks and say, “That’s wrong.”

The only measure of viability that we have is the premature poorly baby—the baby who arrives early for a reason. Doctors must fight to deal with two complicated situations: whatever made the baby arrive prematurely, and the fact that it has arrived prematurely, which involves lung function and other things. I am afraid that a healthy aborted baby and a premature poorly baby cannot be compared, particularly not at 23 weeks.

Huh? So no defending of her 20 weeks claim then? Dorries has plenty to say about 22 week babies though for some reason, even though that age of gestation is questioned?

“While a research fellow at Oxford, Dr Anand became aware that many premature and early gestation babies died during in-utero operations due to shock induced by pain during the procedure. General thinking at the time, in the 1980s, was that no baby could experience pain before birth—that until birth, a baby was not sentient. In his pioneering work, Dr Anand developed anaesthesia to be delivered to foetuses. Thanks to that work, introduced at the John Radcliffe hospital, anaesthetising babies during in-utero operations is now standard procedure, and babies now live.

Dr Anand went on to continue his work and research in America. When I sat on the Science and Technology Committee, we considered abortion, and one of the members of that Committee—Evan Harris, the former Member for Oxford West and Abingdon, who lost his seat at the last election—described Professor Anand as a little doctor from Little Rock. Dr Anand did much of his further research in America, first at the university of Arkansas and now as the St Jude chair for critical care medicine and professor of paediatrics, anaesthesiology and neurobiology at the university of Tennessee health centre in Memphis.

My only point in relation to Evan Harris’s comments about Professor Anand is that Dr Anand is a gentle, polite academic who is well renowned and respected and has a successful career. To describe such a man as a little man from Little Rock, and to have binned and not considered the evidence on abortion that he presented to the Science and Technology Committee, was a travesty. I complained about it to the Clerks at the time, and I will continue to complain about it, as it tainted the report.

Dr Anand is dealt with by the Ministry of Truth

So far as the allegation that Dr Anand has been excluded or not invited to address the committee, well as member of the committee, herself, Nadine Dorries should know perfectly well that the process by which parliamentary committees invite witnesses – other than those from government, the civil service and other areas of the public sector, is by publishing an open call for written submissions to the committee. The committee states its brief and the information/opinions it is seeking, and it is then up to any interested party to submit their written views, opinions and evidence to the committee for consideration.

Based on the submissions received, the committee will then invite people to appear before the committee to give evidence in person.

As already noted, not only single submission to the committee FROM ANY SOURCE, refers to Dr Anand, his work or any published research paper on which he is cited as the author or co-author.

And Dr Anand, himself, has not made any written submission to the committee.

I move to the feminist argument. As the mother of three young adult daughters, I am a strong believer in a woman’s right to choose. Never, ever would I want to see a return to the bad old days of backstreet abortionists, or restricted access to early abortion. Do I champion this issue from the perspective of religion? No, I do not. I do not come to this from a religious perspective.

Bloggerheads…

Second, those same groups are coordinating/enabling her latest efforts where Dorries and others are masquerading as “pro woman” campaigners seeking to protect vulnerable adults from the physical/mental harm they and other religious groups claim is a common post-abortion problem… but this article/interview from 2007 makes it very clear that Dorries is driven primarily NOT by a desire to protect women, but instead a deeply religious decision to reduce the number of abortions by any means possible, even if these means appear, intially, to be at odds with the anti-abortion agenda:

“I’ve been told my Bill will get nowhere while I have pro-lifers and abortion rights people against me. But my argument is: How can anyone argue – on any grounds – that my proposal is not right. Currently there are about 600 abortions a day in the UK. I’d like to reduce that number by at least half. The public is not interested in banning abortion. Those who hold out for a complete ban have not changed the law – they have not saved a single life. To me, saving some lives is better than saving no lives at all. I hope pro-lifers will come to share my view that some progress is better than no progress. ” – Nadine Dorries (source/PDF)

If you want a full on fisk, Unity steps up and metaphorically slaps Dorries down. Again.

“Please Mr Staines, come and help us keep things tidy.”

August 17th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

Paul Staines AKA Guido Fawkes has admitted to editing his own wikipedia entry.

Zelo Street has the story.

Whether editing your own Wikipedia entry is A Bad Thing or neither here nor there depends on who you are and what edits you are making.

What is A Bad Thing is bullshitting about why you’re editing your little claim to fame.

Paul Staines has been, so he says, long been invited to edit his own entry by the editors. So that’s ok then.

But really? Did Staines really get an email asking for help. I wonder how it went…

Dear Mr Fawkes,
Your entry in Wikipedia is in such a mess and so full of inaccuracies that it really needs a good tidy up.

Seeing as it is in such a mess, and it is about you and you’re soooooo important and brilliant in all walks of life, from journalism to high finance, would you do us the honour of gracing our webpage and having a clear out. We just know you’ll do a sterling job at keeping it impartial, too.

Please? Pretty please?

Your loyal subjects,

The Editors

I do wonder how many other people have edited their own entry though, at the invitation of ‘the editors’.

Wikipedia isn’t just a free-for-all. It has some guidelines, as you’d expect.

Take this one for instance…

Dealing with edits by the subject of the article

Subjects sometimes become involved in editing material about themselves, either directly or through a representative. The Arbitration Committee has ruled in favor of showing leniency to BLP subjects who try to fix what they see as errors or unfair material. Although Wikipedia discourages people from writing about themselves

Small edits by the subject of an article may be over-looked, but the key phrase “Wikipedia discourages people from writing about themselves” certainly doesn’t sound like they offer invitations like the one Staines claims he got, especially to people that in the scheme of things, aren’t very big, famous or significant in any way.

Dead seeds don’t grow

March 27th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

I’ve just come from Little Miss -O’s school easter play. It was all very nice and jolly and everything you’d expect from a school production.

Being a Catholic school and with it being easter, I think, the play was a  parable about a sunflower. The story of the Sunflower mirrored Jesus’s crucifiction and resurrection. The new seeds falling from the sunflower being the resurrection and the bringing of new life.

Everything being hunky dory until the following song…

Life is in the seed,
Life is in the seed,
But first the seed
Must fall and die
for new life to proceed.

Now, I know it’s a catholic school and I’ve got to accept some jumpsuit about miracles and zombies being fed to my lass. It’s nothing that can’t be detoxified, and to be honest she’s doing a good job of that herself.

Seriously though, dead seeds growing? Fortunately, Little Miss -O isn’t falling for that one.

Ethical blindness

December 8th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

Independent

The co-founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales has criticised Bell Pottinger’s “ethical blindness” as the lobbying company admitted altering details of its clients’ reputations online.

Bell Pottinger last night said that its digital team used a number of accounts to edit Wikipedia articles, although it stressed it had never done anything illegal.

Last night, Mr Wales told The Independent: “I am astonished at the ethical blindness of Bell Pottinger’s reaction. That their strongest true response is they didn’t break the law tells a lot about their view of the world, I’m afraid.

Of course they’re ‘ethically blind’. They’re fucking paid mouthpieces. You pay them money, they make you look good, or not as bad as you really are.

There are ‘ethical’ PR/lobbying firms out there. That’s the surprise.

footnote:
Its nice to see Tim get credited, and to see him doing something other than fire-fighting all that shit the fucking Tories and their hangers on keep throwing at him.

It’s not a privatisation because the NHS are still the landlords

November 10th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

The Guardian

A private company, listed on the stock market, has been given the right to deliver a full range of hospital services for the first time in the history of the NHS, reigniting a debate about the use of business in the health sector.

Circle Healthcare, a John Lewis-style partnership valued at around £120m, will manage the debt-laden Hinchingbrooke hospital in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, from February after the government signed off on a decade-long contract on Wednesday.

For fucks sake, people. Calm down. It’s not a privatisation. Can’t you people see that?

The takeover is not considered a full privatisation as the buildings will remain in public hands and the employees retain their pay and pension on existing terms.

It’s not a privatisation because the NHS will still own the building. *rolls eyes*.

Seriously though, how can anyone claim this is not a privatisation? The building remains in the hands of the NHS, so the NHS becomes the landlord. *Everything* else is down to Circle.

The current staff stay on their existing pay and pension terms, but what about new staff taken on? Will they be on contracts the same as NHS staff? What about when Circle decide they don’t want existing staff on NHS terms? They’ll find a way of getting people to re-apply for their existing jobs on different contracts.

Having said all that, as long as there are no links between Circle and the Tories… what? oh…

As Labour MP Jamie Reed tweeted last night:

Former Tory Health team member Mark Simmonds MP is also a paid strategic advisor with Circle. Coincidence?

And then added:

Two of Circle’s major shareholders are Tory Party donors. Coincidence?

In fact, emails released to the Guardian (by SpinWatch) in July this year showed Circle was part of a lobby group that took the NHS regulator to expensive gala dinners.

Privaatisation started quietly with a little contract here and a little outsourcing there, this though, is the real deal.

Bullshitters beware

February 2nd, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

LC:

Monday 9th February is the launch date for FactCheck UK, a new blogger-driven project that aims to pull together some of the best talent from the British blogosphere and subject the veracity of Britain’s politicians and mainstream media to some much needed independent scrutiny.

I shouldn’t really have to explain the concept as you should all be familiar with the US FactCheck website and Channel 4’s own sporadic efforts. We’ll operating to more or the same principles but with a somewhat wider brief, one that takes into account the role of the media in spreading disinformation and bullshit. We’re also planning to be a bit less po-faced that our American counterparts and lace the site with a bit of humour to go along with the serious business of chasing the truth.

Also starting up are the Bullshit Awards (nothing to do with US ones, I think). The awards nominations are open from the 16th February for 10 days and have loads of catagories, of which the Churner Prize, the Witchfinder General Award and the Whores of Babylon Prize sound interesting.

See Liberal Conspiracy or Ministry of Truth for more details.

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