§ Mr. Thorntonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will undertake to monitor the quality of the counselling available to women, particularly young women, seeking advice from abortion clinics, in particular as to whether such counselling is (a) balanced, (b) always given and (c) will, where appropriate, direct the client to another organisation offering help in unplanned pregnancies.
§ Mr. Geoffrey FinsbergIt is a condition of the registration of pregnancy advice bureaux, from which most patients admitted for abortion to nursing homes approved under the Abortion Act are referred, that every woman seeking advice on abortion should be offered adequate counselling by a person with appropriate training and experience. Such counselling should be balanced and should inform the woman about the help available to her should the pregnancy continue. Routine, unannounced visits are made to all bureaux by the Department's medical and lay investigators, at which checks are made to ensure observance of these and other conditions of registration. Similar checks are made at nursing homes approved under the Abortion Act to ensure that women admitted for termination of pregnancy, who were not referred by a pregnancy advice bureau, have had the opportunity of adequate counselling.