We do not believe that society really wants to push women into abortion due to external pressures of finance, education, employment or attitude. However, it is clearly more difficult for women to cope with an unexpected pregnancy if they are not financially secure or not in secure employment or not completed any education or training they are pursuing.

We would like to initiate a national debate as to how society might help.  Some suggestions are:

• Maternity and paternity benefits should be paid for centrally by government rather than by individual companies. So that companies need not feel penalised when women get pregnant and so their career prospects suffer less.

• Maternity pay equal to the best of other European Union countries. So that parents of young children are more financially secure.
• Maternity pay available till the child goes to primary school. So that women do not feel under severe financial pressure to get back to work which may be very difficult with a young child.

• Convenient re-entry into education (school / university) and employment after having a child (regardless of previous time in post). So that having a child does not destroy education / career prospects.

• Support for grandparents reducing work and other commitments to help look after a baby if a mother wishes to return to work. To enable the wider family to share the work involved in caring for a baby.
• Thought should be given to ways of keeping contact with children eg long-term fostering rather than adoption. So that women who give up their child do not feel they have lost them forever.

• The Catholic Church could take a lead in arguing for simple human kindness when dealing with women in find themselves pregnant in what might be considered "less than ideal" circumstances.
• The Catholic Church could take a lead to improve the attitude of society towards single mothers.
• Education of young men at school as to how to deal with an unexpected pregnancy.

• Needs to engage with the abortion issue and develop research to analyse what makes a pregnancy a crisis pregnancy and what makes a woman in a crisis pregnancy choose abortion – with a view to resolving these issues.

We believe that when women are making a choice about whether to have an abortion that

• Those caring for them should recognise that often they are in turmoil and that their request for an abortion could be a cry for help.

• There should be honest counselling with fair mention of the psychological trauma sometimes involved.
• This counselling should be private so that women are not coerced into an abortion by other people.
• They should be entitled to a discussion about alternatives to abortion.
• They should be given information about organisations such as LIFE or CARE which will support them in keeping their baby.

These are ideals and will clearly cost money. However, we believe that there is scope within society for these costs to be met. Only when we have made changes such as these, can society start to say that we are giving women a real choice on abortion.