PRESS RELEASE - Marie Stopes
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Date: 20th August 2016
Contact: Bernadette Smyth
Tel: 07956451655 / 02890278484
IN WAKE OF MARIE STOPES SCANDAL FOLLOWING CQC INSPECTION – ALL EYES ARE ON BELFAST CENTRE, SAYS PRECIOUS LIFE’S BERNADETTE SMYTH
Following its unannounced inspection at Marie Stopes International’s corporate headquarters in England last month and call centre last Friday, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has reported its concerns about the wellbeing and safety of women having abortions at Marie Stopes centres in England.
The CQC doubts whether Marie Stopes staff have adequate levels of training and competence to administer sedatives and general anaesthetic before a woman undergoes a surgical abortion at its centres. The CQC also has immediate concerns about issues of consent.
Following this damning report, Marie Stopes International has suspended its abortion ‘services’ for under-18s and vulnerable women, suspended all abortions under general anaesthetic and conscious sedation, and suspended all surgical abortions at its Norwich centre.
The CQC have reported that 250 women a week who were booked in for abortions at the Marie Stopes centres will be sent elsewhere to “make sure they are protected from potential harm”.
Responding to this latest Marie Stopes scandal, Bernadette Smyth, the director of Precious Life, the leading pro-life group in Northern Ireland, commented:
“This unprecedented exposure of Marie Stopes International and its ‘services’ by the Care Quality Commission shows loud and clear that Marie Stopes International is not to be trusted. All along, women are being deceived and exploited by this organisation and their unborn babies are doomed to death.
“Professor Edward Baker, the Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals at the Care Quality Commission has said that the Care Quality Commission will ‘continue to monitor [Marie Stopes] very closely’ and ‘will not hesitate to take further action, if needed.’
“With regard to the Marie Stopes centre in Belfast, no one knows what goes on behind its closed doors. It is shrouded in darkness. When it first opened its doors in October 2012, its representatives boasted that the centre would work closely with the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA), as if this were enough to quell the people’s outrage at this notorious organisation’s unwanted arrival and their fear that vulnerable women and their unborn babies would fall prey to its ‘services’.
“Well, let us hear from the RQIA. I challenge the RQIA to immediately inspect the dark and secretive ‘services’ of the Marie Stopes centre in Belfast and to take action. In the interests of protecting women and their unborn children, the RQIA have a duty to ensure that women from Northern Ireland are not being referred to Marie Stopes in England or elsewhere to have abortions.
“Women deserve better than abortion. Women deserve better than Marie Stopes.”
*Abortion is a criminal offence in Northern Ireland, governed by sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and section 25 of the Criminal Justice Act (NI) 1945.
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