HOW MANY MORE WOMEN MUST DIE BEFORE THE MEDIA EXPOSES MARIE STOPES?

Marie Stopes International is one of the world’s biggest abortion chains, and it operates a Dublin branch which helps to drive business to abortion clinics in Britain.

Now the British Care Quality Commission, which carried out unannounced inspections at Marie Stopes, has forced the chain to stop performing abortions.

The reasons given by the inspectors are chilling.

They said that abortions could not take place at Marie Stopes because they needed ‘to make sure [women] were protected from potential harm’.They said that abortions could not take place at Marie Stopes because they needed ‘to make sure [women] were protected from potential harm’.

The CQC said it could not be sure that staff had adequate levels of training and competence to administer sedatives and general anaesthetic. I don’t need to spell out exactly how dangerous that is.

The safety watchdog also said it had immediate concerns about issues of consent – and ensured that abortions for under 18s and vulnerable groups of women were immediately suspended.

That should be ringing all kinds of alarm bells. Are young or vulnerable patients being coerced into aborting their babies? Was the abortion procedure being sold in a misleading way? ‘Immediately’ suspending services suggests that the inspectors had cause for grave concern.

So much for ‘safe, legal abortion’. So much for putting the needs of women first. So much for trusting abortion providers.

But, of course, Marie Stopes has a grim and deadly record in this area.

Aisha Chithira, who had travelled from Ireland, bled to death after an abortion at a Marie Stopes clinic in West London in 2012. She had been discharged from the clinic despite falling to the floor, hyperventilating and being obviously unwell. Another Irish woman almost died in the same Marie Stopes clinic in 2006 when an abortionist, Dr Phanuel Dartey, perforated her uterus and left pieces of her baby inside her body. When she returned to Ireland, the woman was rushed to hospital where she was in a critical condition for two months.

Reporting from the Irish media on these cases – and these new revelations – has been mostly confined to short reports. There has been no blaze of publicity, no calls for an inquiry, and no hard questions asked of the abortion industry. Reporting from the Irish media on these cases – and these new revelations – has been mostly confined to short reports. There has been no blaze of publicity, no calls for an inquiry, and no hard questions asked of the abortion industry.

The website of the Marie Stopes clinic in Dublin makes no mention of the fact that its clinics in Britain have effectively had its abortion services shut down.

It probably feels it doesn’t need to. The Irish media will do a grand job of covering things up for them once again. The question is: how many more women and their babies must die before the Irish media tells the truth about Marie Stopes?