Who do the Government think is the ‘Rogue’?
Posted by Maman Poulet on 11 Aug 2009 at 07:01 am | Tagged as: Abortion, Irish Politics
Don't Be Manipulated – Crisis Pregnancy Agency
This is the Crisis Pregnancy Agency’s response to the issue of Rogue Agencies who target women in crisis pregnancy situations. Minister for Health Mary Harney last month referred to thse agencies as ‘quite appalling’.
Look at the ad – does it seem supportive of the women who may have visited rogue agencies, of women who are in crisis pregnancy situations? Or does it make you very uncomfortable that women are being targeted as being manipulated or at fault in visiting the ‘wrong’ place?
Surely someone at the ad agency must have seen that puppet image is highly offensive to women and is a huge mistake? Who’s being manipulated? The women who are traumatised or the groups who set up shop, pretend to be pro-choice pregnancy counsellors and trap women, bully and abuse them.
On the campaign web page there is a list of advice given to women but nothing about the states responsibility to ensure that women are not put through the horror of being trapped into ‘counselling’ which is very directive. biased and very abusive.
Indeed the state funds two agencies who do not support a woman’s right to choose and have great difficulties in making sure full information is provided to women in crisis. While they do not show videos or intimidate women in the way the WRC do, Cura for example has had internal difficulties as counsellors have refused to hand out information on all the options available. These volunteers have been sacked only to be re-admitted to the organisation again with apologies published in national local papers.
There is little regulation of the services that are funded by the state – no mandatory counselling qualifications are required of the groups who provide services, and there is no independent complaints procedure in respect of these groups or the groups who are not funded and advertise services.
The ad says these services can be easily avoided? How? They are allowed operate by the state. Whilst not funded by the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, the Department of Health and Children aren’t shutting them down. They’re just making the women who end up going through the horrible experience of visiting a rogue agency when in crisis feel guilty. Again women are being regulated by the state instead of the state regulating services provided to women and stopping the abuse and trauma suffered by women who visit the ‘rogues’.
Quite Appalling indeed Mary.
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I was about to say, surely there must be a list of good advice-giving agencies, and it was only when I went to respond that I could see advice on the advert to text list… why isn’t that in big, bold letters rather than the puppet on a string?
Having seen some ads where men are presented as dumb as **** (like the meteor advert in the fridge – wouldn’t you just knock at the fridge door until someone else in the kitchen hears ya?), the image of woman-as-puppet – surely construes women’s agency as passive but it has echoes in some of the ads for unwanted pregancy (ie. what will mam say – not what will *I* do) and the adverts for tampons or thrush on tv are just yuk from the viewpoint of an ‘expert voice’ telling women what to do, rather than a woman speaking for herself. Not wishing to suggest the ad agency is blameless this case (I’m sure Mary H paid them well!), but isn’t there a wider Irish “style” of presenting women in the media that is problematic?
That’s a horrible picture and a really depressing campaign strategy and I agree with you Suzy that they should be doing more to regulate the services funded and rogue. The experiences of women who seek help with accessing information are probably hard to document but there are huge problems out there and the CPA and Mary Harney should be doing more. Great blog!
Choice Ireland were on Ireland:AM this morning talking about Rogue Agencies. (Complete coincidence to my posting btw.)
http://www.tv3.ie/ireland_am.php?video=12313&locID=1.65.74
Well done for the blog piece maman p and for the excellent Ireland:AM interview. I actually agree with SeanR about the poster image & think that notion of women as uninformed/passive shouldn’t be reinforced. But on with the Choice Ireland’s most necessary campaign and call for accountability of Health Ministry. Go for it. In support!
Thank you Maman Poulet for highlighting this. CPA should remove this advertisement and apologise for such an offensive image.
Cant CPA publish where these Rouge Agencies are based and who is funding them? So many questions here for CPA and the Minister on the regulation and of the training of Counsellors -Well Done to Sinead Ahern from Choice Ireland for naming some of the rouge agenices on TV3.
[...] by admin on 12 Aug 2009 at 05:34 am | Tagged as: Abortion, Irish Politics Following up on the post yesterday on the very flawed Campaign on Rogue Pregnancy Counselling Agencies I see the advertising agency [...]
“Surely someone at the ad agency must have seen that puppet image is highly offensive to women and is a huge mistake? Who’s being manipulated? The women who are traumatised or the groups who set up shop, pretend to be pro-choice pregnancy counsellors and trap women, bully and abuse them.”
I’m not sure I follow this, (and it could just be me) aren’t you talking about who is being manipulative when it comes to the rogue agencies? The image is fairly barmy but lots of the images used in advertising strike me as odd. But I’m not their target market, and with respect it’s likely you’re not either. Are you someone who would be easily open to manipulation in a crisis like this? I doubt it.
So the question is; would someone who was otherwise passive and easily lead get the message to be careful about who to talk to? I’m not suggesting that everyone who finds themselves with a crisis pregnancy is passive or easily lead. The fact is those who aren’t don’t need the ad to help them avoid the crazies, it is the ones who don’t know where to turn and are so at sea that they would latch on to anyone that the ad needs to talk to.
“On the campaign web page there is a list of advice given to women but nothing about the states responsibility to ensure that women are not put through the horror of being trapped into ‘counselling’ which is very directive. biased and very abusive.”
I’m not sure how exactly the state can 100% stop people advertising from their own pocket that they give ‘advice’, we’ve got people giving advice in all kinds of areas and the state isn’t able to regulate it. From mortgages to careers, some people are biased others are just useless.
This might even be a good case where some means of on-line review and rating from people who’ve used agencies hosted by the CPA might be useful with those in need of advice. To allow them to get some real feedback but there again, we can’t ignore that such systems are very open to gaming. I can just see the Mullenistas posting review after review. Web 2.0 fails again.
“Indeed the state funds two agencies who do not support a woman’s right to choose and have great difficulties in making sure full information is provided to women in crisis.”
The problem here is that the state does not have a fully formed view on a women’s right to choose at present. It is true the constitution has been found by the supreme court to provide that in certain circumstances terminations are not illegal but we’ve never made it properly legal either. There’s no law as such against it but there’s no law providing for it either.
I’m not attacking or defending any political party or position in this area, just saying that as there currently isn’t an official legal position on behalf of the Irish state that arguing that the state is somehow required to only fund those organisations that would provide 100% information on all options isn’t quite correct. The government may have made that part of the CPA’s remit in funding agencies but it’s not constitutional bound to do so. The state, much like a lot of its citizens, is very conflicted on the whole issue. It’s not so much an Irish solution to an Irish problem as it is an Irish problem with an Irish problem.
[...] information or indeed rogue agencies who are allowed to exist unregulated targeting women. (See earlier post on the actions of the state in trying to make women feel guilty about attending rogue [...]