In Australia there are a number of pregnancy advisory, support and optioning counselling services for women facing an unintended pregnancy.

Many of these providers support women experiencing an unintended pregnancy with unbiased, decision-based counselling that explains to women their three options: to parent, adopt or abort. Unbiased services present these options in a non-judgemental way ensuring that any decision these women makes is then progressed to a referral, ensuring that women can then access the service they have chosen.

Unfortunately, there are also a number of pregnancy advisory services which upon first glance appear to be offering unbiased pregnancy counselling support, but instead are anti-abortion.

These ‘false-providers’^[1] can be difficult to indentify as they often do not declare who they are, their values or which, if any, organisation they are connected with.

To learn more about false providers of pregnancy advisory services please refer to Reproductive Choice Australia’s^[2] research paper which can be accessed here: www.reproductivechoiceaustralia.org.au/Articles/False-Providers-paper.pdf. A list of deceptive counselling services can also be found at: www.childrenbychoice.org.au/nwww/prochoicecounsel.htm

Upon calling a false provider women can be told a variety of inaccurate statements as to why they should not choose an abortion. These can include that:

• they are too late in their pregnancy to obtain an abortion
• abortion increases rick of breast cancer, cervical cancer and mental illness
• abortion will make you infertile
• they will go to hell for having an abortion
• abortion increases the risk of miscarriage in future pregnancies
• women who choose abortion are ‘murderers’

These false providers cause unnecessary distress to women who are already in an emotionally vulnerable period. Additionally, these providers can delay women in accessing and reaching services who can help them, through refusing to refer them to appropriate services.

At Marie Stopes International Australia we work with counsellors in our National Support Centre team who provide all-options, decision-based counselling to women facing an unintended pregnancy. More information about our counselling service can be found here: www.mariestopes.org.au/our-services/women/counselling.

Where appropriate we also refer women wishing to access counselling services to Children by Choice^[3] who provide all-options telephone counselling to all Australian women and face-to-face counselling for women in the Queensland area. We also refer to other counsellors as appropriate such as State and Territory based Sexual Health and Family Planning Australia^[4] (SH&FPA) organisations.

Sadly, there are no laws or regulations in Australia to stop these false providers from misleading women. Most of these services are provided by volunteers and the women calling do not pay for the service, meaning that these false providers are not held accountable under the Trade Practices Act for misleading advertising.

In 2005, the then Democrats Senator Natasha Stott Despoja unsuccessfully attempted to pass a bill (Transparent Advertising and Notification of Pregnancy Counselling Services Bill 2005) that would regulate these services. The bill would have forced these providers to state on their websites, literature and throughout their counselling telephone calls that they do not offer abortion as an option to women and would not refer women to abortion services.

Marie Stopes International Australia believes all providers of pregnancy counselling services should declare their referral processes and whether or not they are an all-options counselling service. As our research, ‘What Women Want: When faced with an unplanned pregnancy^[5]’ found, 81% of women said it was important that a pregnancy counsellor referred for all three options - abortion, adoption and parenting.  Furthermore, 19% of women who stated that they relied on pregnancy counsellors accessed by phone or in person for support. These findings tell us that there is not only a desire for all-options counselling services, but also a demand for the services by some women.