Employer promises free abortions as a job perk
Published: August 10th, 2010
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Employees are being offered free abortions and free sterilisation along with reduced gym membership fees as staff perks by one of Britain’s leading abortion providers.Marie Stopes International (MSI) is offering the highly controversial benefits package to employees, their partners and their children.
Details of MSI’s benefits package are available on its website which states: “Team members, their partners and dependants will be able to access MSI’s core services (abortion, male/female sterilisation, and family planning) without charge.”
A nurse working for MSI could get a free abortion for herself or her daughter if she had an unwanted pregnancy, saving a significant sum of money. The most expensive abortion is for a late termination, between 19 and 24 weeks, which costs £1,720 as the surgery is significantly more complex.
MSI have admitted that it has been offering the free abortions to staff for a decade but claimed it did not keep any record of how many babies have been aborted by staff members.
The disclosure follows controversy over the first television advertisement for abortion in Britain which was screened on Channel 4 in May, generating more than 1,000 complaints to the advertising standards agency. Critics warned that it misled viewers as it did not mention abortion and women may have phoned the MSI number given in the advert expecting impartial advice, and may not have realised that MSI are primarily an abortion provider.
Josephine Quintavalle, of the Pro-Life Alliance, said: ‘Never famous for its sensitivity, Marie Stopes recently shared controversial TV advertising time with a selection of beer brands, rival supermarkets, hair products and well-known confectionary bars. So it is not surprising this crass organisation equates free abortions with gym membership as appropriate consumer perks for employees and their families. Marie Stopes’ offer of free abortions for staff is sick. Abortion is the killing of unborn children, not a job perk. Marie Stopes’ macabre offer... shows it is a cynical abortion business, not the supportive sexual health service it claims to be. We have every right to be outraged and it is time for a proper public inquiry into the practice and marketing of abortion in the UK.’
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