OTTAWA, February 15, 2002 (LSN.ca) – Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada (PPFC) has distributed five television ads to promote the abortifacient morning after pill in Canada to the five national broadcasters (CBC, CTV, Global, WTN and MuchMusic) and 16 regional broadcasters. Seeking free publicity, PPFC is billing the ads as public-service announcements.
The television commercials are part of PPFC’s “Emergency Contraception Awareness Campaign” launched Tuesday. The campaign includes 5,000 posters set to be distributed to Planned Parenthood affiliate offices, public / community health centers, colleges, universities and women’s centers across Canada in the coming weeks and months.
The National Post reports today on the massive effect of the television ads as seen from a similar campaign in the US. Planned Parenthood aired the ads in the US and said they “saw a 645% increase in the number of people who received emergency contraception in a three-year period.” Planned Parenthood provided 310,000 prescriptions for emergency contraceptive pills in the United States in 2000, compared with 48,000 in 1998, a US Planned Parenthood rep said.
The Post reports that CTV has refused to run the ads since they do not meet its definition of a public-service announcement. (National Post Fri 15 Feb 2002 News A11 News, Mary Vallis)
See the PPFC videos on line at: https://www.ppfc.ca/issues/video2.htm
See the PPFC announcement on the campaign at: https://www.ppfc.ca/issues/ec-pressrelease.html (with files from Pro-Life E-News)