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Yvonne Roberts says suing the NHS for post-abortion trauma is a step too far for the compensation culture.

An unnamed woman is intending to sue the NHS for post-abortion trauma. She recently told BBC Radio Four's Today programme that when she gave birth to her son a year ago, feelings of regret, guilt and self- hatred over her earlier abortion "flooded back".

Extensive research indicates that a minority of women experience severe mental distress after a termination. Nevertheless, this woman, backed by the anti-abortion organisation Life, wants the NHS to pay for a decision she would not have taken, she argues, if counselling had been given on the possible psychological effects of a termination.

Critics argue that we are in the grip of a compensation culture gone mad, in which the tariff for suffering appears as arbitrary as the grounds on which people make their claims.

Recently Paul James began proceedings (later dropped) to win £400,000 in damages from Hammersmith and Fulham Council, in west London. His lawyer argued that he had been left with a "profoundly disturbed" personality that prevented him from holding down a job or sustaining a relationship. This was the alleged consequence of the council failing to provide him with "unchangeable and reliable parenting". Instead, he had lived in a succession of foster families and children's institutions until the age of 18.

So, are we in the midst of a "poor me" gold rush? Or can the levying of large sums of cash help not just the individual but also expedite change in organisations, which, otherwise, may show little desire to improve?

In the case of alleged post-abortion trauma, it seems absurd to ask the NHS to fork out. As Dr Ellie Lee of the Pro-Choice Forum points out, "Abortion provision takes place on the basisÉ that reproductive decisions are private ones, best made by those who will bear the consequences of them."

In the matter of organisations that are sexist, racist or whose failure to manage effectively exacts a high cost not just from one individual but from large numbers, nothing encourages change more speedily than the imposition of a tough financial penalty. In the USA, in the 1970s, the communications giant AT&T was fined millions of dollars because its discriminatory employment policies held back women and ethnic minorities.

The lesson was learned. Five years later, the face of its white-collar work force had changed drastically with an influx of those who had previously been marginalised. Local authorities that have overhauled their policies, however, may still be landed with the bill for the inadequacies of those who ran the shop years before. That's rough, but it's still justice.