The decision to let abortion clinics advertise on TV is wrong on every level

jon

How about advertising for women to put unwanted children up for adoption?

Travis Bickle

Meanwhile, with their muddled and mistaken benefit policies, this useless shambles of a Government is encouraging teenage girls to get pregnant. D'OH !

CCTV

So we cannot advertise alcohol on TV, nor religion, nor anti-abortion campaigns, but we can sell abortion itself on free-to-view television. No doubt the BBC will volunteer for such ads.

Athanasius

I quite agree - it's a shocking decision, and indicative of the culture of death in which we live. Further advertising of contraception will do no good either, but I suppose those of us who wish to stand against this culture will be ignored or silenced.

K Torode

Unbelievable! If our secular society is without the moral fabric capable of saying to these young people that early pregnancies are not socially acceptable then what hope for their offspring. Unfortunately much of our society is based on logic without a moral framework. The BBC would be better employed by their masters to suggest that families of these errant youngsters take more responsibility for their offspring, as was the case in past generations.

Andy

It just shows that life is considered cheap. Better by far not to get pregnant in the first place.

Susan Hill

Words cannot express how sad this makes me, from whichever perspective I look at it .. as a Christian, as a mother, as someone who has seen the psychological devastation an abortion can cause to a woman many years later. I am not altogether and wholly anti-abortion under certain circumstances but this casual assumption that life is easily and carelessly got, easily and carelessly destroyed and that somehow it is just another form of contraception is a terrible one. Of course, Christians will be jeered and sneered at for voicing any opposition but I wonder how the Muslim community will view it and if their views will be treated any more seriously ? Can you wonder that so many of them are disaffected with the collapse in every sort of moral standard in the country they have chosen ? And that such disaffection so easily leads to a determination to destroy it ?
It is a corrupt and morally bankrupt society indeed that treats the taking of life so casually. From abortion to euthanasia is a very small step. Next TV advert for the Swiss Dignitas Clinic perhaps ?

Verity

Gruesome. Like this monstrous, Calibanesque government.

Oscar

The BBC actually had the nerve to say that this was part of a campaign to prevent teenage pregnancies. They are so impervious to anti-abortion arguments that they actually believe abortion is equivalent to contraception.

Andrew Hingston

This is one distortion after another. What are to be advertised are Sexual Health Advice Centres, much needed and seriously absent from most communities and therefore from young people. Among the information these Centres will offer is information about abortion. That is right and proper. Abortion is a woman's right -- but young women, especially, may suffer from too little information, or wrong information, as from which all the previous posters appear to suffer. Genuine information rather than superstition and old wives' tales, should be made as widely available as possible -- and people, including young people, should be encouraged to get the information and then make decisions that are right for them, without a lot of moralist spin.

molesworth 1

By definition, an abortion cannot prevent one single pregnancy, merely its outcome.

THX1138

Contraception & Abortion is not against the law so why shouldn't Pregnancy advisory services be allowed to advertise. I see nothing wrong with this and increasing the adverting for condoms and other contraceptives will help reduce unawanted pregnancies and therefore reduce the number of abortions. Does anyone seriously think that women will have an abortion because they hear an ad on the Radio?

If you click the link and actually read the article on the BBC website you will see that Mary Wakefield has cherry picked and distorted an eminently sensible proposals aimed at reducing the ridiculously high UK rates of teenage pregnancy and sexual infections.

BalaamsAss

This is the fat end of wedge.

Hysteria

hmmmm - well I did go look at the link. And I still think I am more with Susan and Verity on this.

Shouldn't we be encouraging a moral approach? (this used to be the remit of the church, and also the social norm of an earlier age).

Medical help is already available if we want to get into the brutal mechanics of this - but that intervention is the last resort. Avoidance is surely a better place to focus our attentions -

Verity

Susan Hill writes: "Of course, Christians will be jeered and sneered at for voicing any opposition but I wonder how the Muslim community will view it and if their views will be treated any more seriously ? Can you wonder that so many of them are disaffected with the collapse in every sort of moral standard in the country they have chosen ?" Oh, pulleeze, the country 'they have chosen'? And that such disaffection so easily leads to a determination to destroy it ?

Susan Hill: That is the programme. The destruction of Britain, in case it has escaped your attention, has been going on apace for 12 years. Fifteen years ago, this would have caused outrage. Twelve years ago, when Blair slithered under the door jamb of No 10. Now Labour has got the population "groomed" to accept ever deeper degradations.

You really should stop trying to understand every new punch in the face. There's nothing to understand. It's hegemony.

Verity

Travis Bickle - "Meanwhile, with their muddled and mistaken benefit policies, this useless shambles of a Government is encouraging teenage girls to get pregnant. D'OH !"

You don't get it, do you? This is intentional evil and has been for 12 years. It's not a mistake.

Verity

Try that in Tulsa, the Buckle of the Bible Belt, where you are oh, so sincerely trying to get to, jerk.

Fergus Pickering

I don't see how abortion can reduce the rate of sexual infections? Not having sex will certainly reduce the rate of sexual infections (not many nuns with sexual infections I think and not a problem that has ever troubled the Holy Father) and I presume the wesring of condoms will do the same, though having a load of condoms somewhere about the place (as my daughters did, stuffed in the bottoms of drawers, and actually using them are not the same thing. But I don't see what abortion has to do with it.

TomTom

without a lot of moralist spin.

Better to live in an amoral world where noone feels constrained by any sense of obligation.....and what a world it is !!!

Travis Bickle

Verity, Oh I get it, shame our puppy dog media don't see the contradiction.

Forlornehope

We have been so concerned with the danger of creating Orwell's 1984 that we have built Huxley's Brave New World.

John Lea

You can guarantee one thing: the same Guardian-reading, white liberal types who last week poured venom on the Pope's remarks attacking the use of contraception in Africa - remarks that sought, more than anything, to advocate sexual restraint and emphasise the sanctity of life - will be all in favour of this truly horrible idea. Where on earth do these people derive their moral values - Big Brother?

I agree with Verity: we are witnessing the premeditated and systematic destruction of Britain by pained white liberals - people who loathe every traditional moral value the UK was built upon.

Oscar

Contraception should never be equated with abortion. It's as simple as that. One should be encouraged for single, young people - the other discouraged. The best way to discourage abortion is to promote effective contraception.

Sherlock

They aren't going to advertise abortion. They are going to advertise advice centres which may offer abortion. No-one is suggestions abortion is a form of contraception. Ever been to any of these places? Try visiting one and not leaving with handfuls of condoms. And read the real story next time, not just the headline, before busting into a ridiculous rant.

Oscar

Sherlock - I was quoting the BBC who seamlessly reported that abortion was going to be advertised on television as part of an effort to reduce teenage pregnancies. That was the Today programme's description, not mine. And it has been increasingly the case that abortion is being used as a backup to condoms - just look at the horrifyingly high figures for abortion in this country.

states sj

God heal our heal our land,indeed holly intervention is seriously needeed from all religion sectors inorder to curb this outragious thing!

DohManStar

Ridiculous discussion. Has anyone here, including the journalists, actually read the proposals? Or is everyone just regurgitating the reactionary nonsense spouted by the Hate Mail? Shame on the Spectator/BBC et al for not even bothering to read the source material.

Whiskey

Urgh, the pseudo-morality a lot of you are spouting about abortion leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I really think Jesus has more important things to worry about right now. Abortion is avaliable as a service- why should people not be made aware of it?