Abortion Clinics Given 'Green Light' for TV Adverts

Private clinics that carry out abortions for profit have received the go-ahead to promote their services with TV and radio adverts.

Until now, restrictions have meant abortion clinics can advertise their services only if they are not run for profit.

Advertising watchdogs have discussed liberalising the rules for several years.

However, their plans to go ahead were delayed in 2009 following a fierce public backlash.

And the only advert that has ever been aired on TV, by charity Marie Stopes International in 2010, it attracted more than 4,500 complaints.

Recent pressure to change the rules came from the Broadcast Committee on Advertising Practice (BCAP) and the Committee on Advertising Practice, bodies made up of advertising industry insiders and commercial broadcasters, who critics say have a financial interest in encouraging advertising.

The Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice said it was changing the regulations to be policed by the ASA following a public consulation, suggesting the Department of Health had been invited to respond, but had not done so.

Critics say the reforms risk leaving the UK with among the most liberal advertising rules in the world.

Pro-life campaigners have reacted with dismay, saying the move would trivialise human life by putting the choice to have a termination on a par with buying washing-up liquid or cereal.

• Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt is understood to be ‘very unhappy’ about the move, but cannot override the ruling from the independent advertising regulator the Advertising Standards Authority.

• ‘The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children’ argues the “pernicious” change will allow “abortion-peddlers” to “poison our culture.”

Dr Dan Boucher, of the charity CARE, said:

“The idea that abortions should be freely advertised on TV along with toothpaste and breakfast cereal says something very sad about the way in which the values of our consumer culture, of acquiring and disposing, are penetrating our way of life generally, even our approach to life itself.”

• Dr Peter Saunders, chief executive of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said:

“Having an abortion is a deeply traumatic experience that can lead to further medical and physiological complications. A 30-second advert is not the place to discuss and promote this medical procedure.”

• Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who is campaigning to change the law so that women must be referred for independent counselling before a termination, said:

“What this is actually going to do is desensitise what abortion is and the seriousness of it, and making it sounds like it’s as easy as having your lunch.

Broadcasters will be making profit through advertising revenue off the back of a service which ends life. It’s appalling.”

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?

Many Scripture passages teach us not to deliberately kill innocent human beings (cf. Exodus 23:7; Proverbs 6:16,17; Revelation 21:8; 22:15; Matthew 15:19,20; and Romans 13:8-10).

In addition, please consider these specific passages.

• Psalm 106:37,38: Israel was polluted with blood because the people shed the innocent blood of their “sons and daughters.”

But unborn babies are “sons and daughters.” What then is the condition of our land when over 25 million “sons and daughters” have been legally killed?

• Matthew 2:16: Herod is considered wicked because he slew the male children in Bethlehem.

Luke 2:12,16 calls such children “babes.”

But Luke 1:41,44 also calls unborn children “babes,” so how can it be acceptable to kill them?

• Hosea 13:16; 2 Kings 8:12: When children or infants are dashed to pieces, it is a great tragedy to any nation. Yet unborn babies are children or infants, and in our nation they are dashed to pieces by the millions!

• Acts 7:19; Exodus 1:16-18: Pharaoh commanded that Israelite “sons” or “men children” be killed as soon as they were born.

But these same terms are used for unborn babies. Would it have been acceptable for Pharaoh to have had abortions performed to kill the babies? Is it any less wicked if people today do it?