Critics have slammed the decision to allow private clinics that carry out abortions for profit to advertise on television and radio.
The Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) has ruled that organisations that charge for pregnancy services are free to promote their work on broadcast media from 30 April.
BCAP believe there is no justification to prevent the adverts as long as they are not harmful, offensive or misleading.
Appalling
Conservative MP Nadine Dorries said: “What this is actually going to do is desensitise what abortion is and the seriousness of it, and making it sound 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.”
Dr Peter Saunders, chief executive of the Christian Medical Fellowship was equally critical saying that, “having an abortion is a deeply traumatic experience that can lead to further medical and physiological complications.
Profit
“A 30-second advert is not the place to discuss and promote this”.
On his blog, Dr Saunders also said that commercial organisations performing terminations: “are strongly driven by financial motivations and see success in increasing the number of abortions that they perform”.
Present restrictions have meant that abortion clinics can only advertise their services if they are not run for profit.
Parenting
In 2010, an advert aired on TV by abortion charity Marie Stopes International received more than 4,500 complaints. Currently more than 35 private hospitals in England offer abortion services.
Darinka Aleksic, from the pro-abortion group Abortion Rights, said of young women, “it’s really important that they have access to objective, accurate information about all their options when they’re facing unplanned pregnancy and that includes parenting and adoption as well as abortion.”
Over 200,000 abortions took place in Great Britain in 2010.