'Rogue' pregnancy agencies criticised

IT WAS questionable whether some State-funded crisis pregnancy agencies should receive money from the Government, an Oireachtas committee was told yesterday.

Senator Ronan Mullen was speaking at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children as it discussed a presentation from a pro-choice group, Choice Ireland, calling for the regulations to outlaw so-called “rogue” pregnancy agencies.

Though not a member of the committee, he had asked to make a contribution to its discussion.

There was broad agreement from committee members that a regulatory framework should be introduced to regulate crisis pregnancy counselling services, and that “rogue” agencies were undesirable.

Sinead Ahern, spokeswoman for Choice Ireland, said the principal aim of such agencies was to prevent a woman with a crisis pregnancy from having an abortion. Though they advertised themselves as mainstream pregnancy counselling services, they used “lies and intimidation” as well as graphic videos and images of foetal remains which caused considerable distress to “very vulnerable women”.

She said that during her investigations into such “agencies”, in which she posed as a woman with a crisis pregnancy, she was told that if she had an abortion she would be more likely to abuse any children she did go on to have.