How Mail exposed the ‘call-centre abortions’
DOCTORS at Marie Stopes sign off abortions for women they have never met, a Daily Mail investigation revealed.
Undercover reporters were approved for abortions based on a brief phone conversation with a call centre worker.
They were told there was no need to meet a doctor because they filled out the necessary forms ‘behind the scenes’, based on reasons given to staff over the phone. The telephone discussions – with a call handler with no medical training – could be as short as seconds.
And if the woman failed to give a reason for the abortion which reflected those set out in the Abortion Act, she was encouraged to come up with a different one.
Although doctors are not legally required to meet the woman before approving an abortion, guidance from the Department of Health says it is ‘good practice’.
Former Marie Stopes gynaecologist Dr John Parsons also spoke out in the Mail about the pressure he felt to rush through up to 35 terminations a day.
Marie Stopes denied Dr Parsons’s claims. It said the -second discussion about the reason for the abortion ‘was part of a 16-minute booking call, which was very thorough’, and it was ‘categorically untrue’ that women were asked to come up with a different reason for having an abortion.